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The Ship Launch 




LAWRENCE’S ADVENTURES 


AMONG THE 


ICE-CUTTERS, GLASS-MAKERS, COAL-MINERS, 
IRON-MEN, AND SHIP BUILDERS. 



TROWBRIDGE, 


Author or li Jack Hazard and His Fortunes,” ‘‘A Chance ro* 
Himself," “Doing His Best,” etc. 


PHILADELPHIA 

HENRY T. COATES & CO. 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

i wo Copies Received 

APB 25 1903 

^ Copyright Entry , 

t-o-i rq $ 

No. 

H- 3 3 J - 5 

COPY A, 


j~0L 

3 

°°p/ 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, 
BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE, 
the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 


.Copyright by J. T. Trowbridge, 1898. 


PREFACE. 


HESE “ Adventures ” of Lawrence were written 



in the faith that instruction could he made 
entertaining, and that the young might be educated 
to observe and think while following the by-paths 
of a story. Contributed originally to “ Our Young 
Folks,” their success as magazine papers has led to 
their republication in this form. 


Aklington, Mass., Dec. 1, 1870. 


J. T. T. 
































4 














r *» 


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CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

AT THE POND-SIDE. 

Paqb 

I. Learning to Swim 1 

II. How the Drowned Boy was Saved ... 4 

CHAPTER II. 

AMONG THE ICE-CUTTERS. 

I. CUTTING THE ICE . 14 

II. Housing the Ice ... .... 23 

CHAPTER III. 

AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 

I. The “Gaffer” 27 

II. A Visit to the Cave 32 

III. The Melting-Pots 40 

IV. What Glass is made of 47 

V. The Glass-Blowers 52 

VI. Moulding and Pressing 70 

VII. Plating and Annealing 73 

VIII. Cutting and Ornamenting .... 78 

IX. Coloring and Silvering 85 

X. Window-Glass and Plat.e-Glass ... 88 

XI. Other Curious Matters 93 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER IV. 

AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 

I. A Journey to the Coal Region ... 97 

II. Mr. Clarence and his Dog Muff . . . 104 

III. Scranton and Coal 7 ~ 109 

IY. The Breaker ....... 117 

Y. The Shaft 130 

VI. In the Gangway 138 

VII. The Miners at Work 148 

VIII. Curiosities of the Mines .... 154 

CHAPTER Y. 

AMONG THE IRON- MEN. 

I. Letter-Writing under Difficulties . . .174 

II. The Blast-Furnaces by Night .... 180 

III. The Casting-House 188 

CHAPTER YI. 

AMONG THE SIIIP-BUILDERS. 

I. The Ship-Yard 199 

II. Building the Ship 204 

III. Finishing 213 

IY. TnE Moulding-Loft 220 

V. Spars and Rigging . . . . . . 230 

YI. The Launch 236 


INDEX ........... 241 


LAWRENCE’S ADVENTURES. 


CHAPTER I. 

AT THE POND-SIDE. 

I. 

LEAKNING TO SWIM. 

I T was June when Lawrence came to the pond- 
side to live. His uncle’s house stood on a high 
green bank ; and his aunt gave him an attic room 
with a window that looked out upon the water. The 
winding shores were fringed with flags and willows, 
or overhung by shady groves; and all around were 
orchards and gardens and meadows. 

A happy boy was Lawrence, for he was passionate- 
ly fond of the water, and he had never lived so near 
a pond before. The scene from his window was 
never twice the same. Sometimes the pond was like 
glass, mirroring the sky and the still trees. Some- 
times light breezes swept over it, and sail-boats rode 
the dancing waves. Then there were the evenings, 
when clouds of the loveliest colors floated above it, 
and the moon rose and silvered it ; and the mornings, 
when all the splendors of the new-risen sun were 
reflected into Lawrence’s chamber. 

A 


1 


2 


AT THE POND-SIDE. 


Whenever he had a leisure hour, — for he went to 
school, and worked in the garden, — he was to be 
seen rambling by the shore, or rowing away in his 
uncle’s boat; and he found that the faithful per- 
formance of his tasks made his sports all the sweeter 
to him. 

As children who play about the water are always 
in more or less danger of falling into it, Lawrence’s 
uncle had lost no time in teaching him to swim. 

“ The first thing for you to learn,” said the doctor, 
— for his uncle was a physician, — “is confidenca 
Plunge your head under water.” 

Lawrence did so, and came up with dripping hair 
and face, gasping. The doctor made him repeat the 
exercise until he neither gasped nor choked. 

“ That does not hurt you, does it ? No. Neither 
will it hurt you if you sink to the bottom, for you 
can hold your breath ; the water is shallow, and, 
besides, I am here to help you. Now try to take a 
single stroke, just as the frogs do. Throw yourself 
boldly off your feet, and don’t be afraid of sinking.” 

Lawrence, after considerable hesitation, tried the 
experiment, and found that he could swim a single 
stroke, and come down upon his feet again without 
drowning. lie tried it again and again, delighted at 
his success. 

“ That will do for this lesson,” said his uncle. 
“ You have been long enough in the v 7 ater. Swim- 
ming is a line exercise for boys, and the bath is 
good for them ; but they often make the mistake of 


LEARNING TO SWIM. 


3 


staying too long in the water. Especially at first you 
must be careful: after you get used to it, you can 
stay in longer. Never go in when you are heated ; 
or if you do, come out again immediately, and continue 
exercising, so as to keep the pores of your skin open.” 

Lawrence learned, in his next lesson, to swim two 
strokes, and in a few days he could swim a rod. His 
uncle then taught him how to dive. 

" You must avoid falling flat on the water ; for if 
you do so, from any great height, it will beat the 
breath out of your body almost as suddenly as if you 
struck a board. Learn to keep your eyes open under 
the water. Some people’s nostrils are so large that 
the water gets into their heads when they dive; if 
that is the case with yours, it will be well to stuff a 
little cotton into them.” 

Lawrence found no trouble of that kind. He was 
soon able to dive, and pick up pebbles, and to swim 
beneath the surface. His uncle then taught him how 
to rescue a drowning person. 

“ If he is still struggling, you must not let him 
get hold of you, or he will very likely cause you to 
drown with him. The safest and readiest method is 
to pull him up by his hair. Be sure and keep behind 
him as you bring him to the surface. Do not try to 
do more than to lift his face out of water, as you 
swim with him to the shore. The human body is so 
light that it may be supported in the water by a very 
slight effort ; but it is hard to keep any portion of it 
much above the surface.” 


4 


AT THE POND-SIDE. 


“ But what shall I do after I get him to the shore ? * 
asked Lawrence. 

“ That is something very important to learn, which 
you will very likely find useful some day, if you live 
near this pond. Three young people have been 
drowned in it within five years, two of whom at least 
might have been saved from death, had the persons 
with them known how to get them out of the water, 
or what to do with them after they had got them 
out.” 

“ I wish you would teach me that,” said the boy. 

“ Very well ; I ’ll give you a practical lesson before 
long.” 


IT. 

HOW THE DROWNED BOY WAS SAVED. 

Accordingly, a few days afterwards, the doctor met 
Lawrence and his companions as they were coming 
up from the water, and, seizing his nephew, exclaimed, 
“ You have been drowned, have you ? ” 

“ Not to my knowledge,” said Lawrence, laughing. 

“ Yes ; you fell from the boat just now, getting 
water-lilies. You know how to swim, but you got 
tangled among the weeds, and were three minutes 
under water. You have just been fished out, and 
brought to shore. Lie down, sir, for a drowned boy 
has no business on his feet.” 

Lawrence, who understood very well what his 


HOW THE DROWNED BOY WAS SAVED. 5 

uncle meant, dropped down on the grass, and tried to 
play the part of a drowned person seriously ; but he 
could n’t help laughing, and all the while he watched 
closely to see what was done for him. 

“What shall we do, hoys?” cried the doctor. 
“ For not a minute is to be lost.” 

“Carry him home, the first thing,” said Tim 
Hooper. 

“ Ho, we have n’t time for that, — so many precious 
minutes would be wasted.” 

“Put him in a warm bath,” said Jake Thornes. 

“ We could n’t do that without carrying him home, 
or bringing the warm water to him. Besides, the 
warm bath is hurtful under such circumstances. A 
person will drown quicker in warm than in cold 
water. The reason seems to be, that cold water 
strikes a chill into the blood, so that its circulation is 
impeded, and less air is required for it in the lungs. 
The blood goes to the lungs to throw off carbon, and 
to get oxygen, which is breathed in with the air, of 
which you know it is a part. When a person drowns, 
the supply of oxygen is cut off, and the carbonic acid, 
retained in the blood, poisons it. A person in a 
swoon may live half an hour under water; for his 
blood moves so slowly that very little oxygen is 
required for it, and there is but little carbon to be 
thrown off. How if we stimulate the circulation 
before we manage to get fresh air into the lungs, — 
as we should if we put him into a warm bath, — you 
see we should increase the difficulty.” 


6 


AT THE POND-SIDE. 


“ The first thing I should do would be to go for the 
doctor,” said Lawrence. 

“ No, you would n’t, for you are drowned, and have 
no voice in the matter. Besides, I am five miles 
away, attending to a boy who broke his leg falling 
from a beam in a barn. But fortunately a boy comes 
up who has been told what to do in such cases, — 
fortunately indeed, for already too much time has 
been lost while we were considering what to do, in- 
stead of doing it. This boy knows that the first 
thing necessary is fresh air in the lungs. To make 
sure that the passage to the lungs is open, he turns 
the patient on his face, in which position any water 
that may have lodged in his mouth and throat, or 
anything that may have risen from his stomach and 
choked him, drops out.” 

The doctor at the same time turned Lawrence on 
his face, to illustrate his method. 

“ In this position, the tongue also falls forward, 
and opens a passage to the windpipe. But often the 
tongue is so much swollen that it is necessary to 
put your finger on the roots of it and press it for- 
ward. This should be looked to, and where there is 
a hand to spare it will be well to keep the tongue in 
place in that way. Act promptly, and don’t be afraid 
of hurting him. In this case, however, the tongue 
will take care of itself. All this must be quickly 
done ; and the new-comer hastens to make the patient 
gasp. He places him on his side, — thus. He rubs 
his forehead smartly, to bring warmth and sensitive- 


HOW THE DROWNED BOY WAS SAVED. 


7 


ness to the skin, then dashes cold water upon it. If 
he has any snuff about him, or hartshorn, or spirits 
of any kind, he applies, them freely to the nostrils. 
But the drowned boy does not gasp. Then what ? ” 

“ Blow in my lungs,” said Lawrence. 

“ But my own breath is exhausted of oxygen, and 
charged with carbonic acid ; and what we want is 
fresh air. While one of these boys runs for the 
doctor, and another for dry blankets, this is what the 
boy who knows does. He loosens your clothes ; then 
turns you down again upon your face, — completely 
upon your breast, — with one wrist under your fore- 
head, thus, and passes his other hand with a gentle 
pressure down your back. That compresses the 
lungs, and drives the bad air out of them. Then, 
making the other boys help, he turns you again on 
your side, and partly upon your back, in which posi- 
tion the lungs open again of themselves, and draw in 
fresh air. Repeat this process six or eight times a 
minute, — not too often, for the low circulation 
requires but little air, and too much cools the body. 
What we want now is to keep the body warm, and 
to excite circulation. As soon as we have got the 
artificial breathing started, we strip off all the wet 
clothes ; wrap the body in the blankets which have 
been brought ; let the fresh air blow on the face and 
chest ; rub and slap the body till it is dry and sensi- 
tive, and dash cold water upon it ; then rub and 
slap again. If the blankets do not come, throw off 
your own coats to wrap the body in.” 


8 


AT THE POND-SIDE. 


“ How long will it take to bring me to ? ” Lawrence 
anxiously inquired. 

“ That depends upon how thoroughly drowned you 
were. I should not give you up for an hour ; but I 
should not have much hope of you, if I could per- 
ceive no movement of the heart, by putting my ear 
to it, after a quarter of an hour. In five or ten 
minutes I should expect you to make a little gasp ; 
and after that I should consider you safe. 

“ How, boys,” the doctor continued, “ remember 
that, as long as nothing is done to put fresh air into 
the lungs of a drowned person, it is just the same for 
him as if he remained all that while in the water. 
So you must be prepared to do all these things with 
the utmost promptitude.” 

He then made them take little Tim Hooper and go 
through with all the movements with him, as he had 
done with Lawrence, and repeat the process until they 
were perfect in it. 

“ If this was taught in every school where children 
live or play near a pond or river,” he said, “ more 
than half the cases of actual death from drowning 
might be prevented.” 

The boys laughed, and thought the lesson more a 
good joke than anything else. They little expected 
ever to have to practise it. But now see how useful 
a little knowledge sometimes proves. 

December came, and the pond froze over. So thin, 
however, was the coating of ice that but few boys 
ventured to go upon it. 


HOW THE DROWNED BOY WAS SAVED. 9 

" Wait, my boy, a day or two, until the ice is 
stronger,” said the doctor. “ Nothing will be lost by 
waiting ; but much will be risked by attempting to 
skate to-day.” 

So Lawrence, not without some mutterings of dis- 
content, I am sorry to say, restrained his eagerness 
to strap on the new skates his uncle had given him, 
and remained on the shore, watching those who did 
skate. 

Suddenly a boy fell, broke the ice, and went in. 
Struggling to get out, he slipped under the ice. It 
was Jake Thornes, one of the boys who had learned 
the lesson with Lawrence. How little did he ima- 
gine, when he laughed at it, that the time would so 
soon come for it to be practised on him ! 

“ Boy drowned ! Boy drowned ! ” was the cry ; and 
the skaters flew to the rescue. 

Lawrence knew that, under such circumstances, 
his uncle would approve of his going upon the ice, 
and he started to run to Jake’s assistance. But he 
had scarcely left the shore when he saw the ice give 
way again, under the weight of two skaters who ap- 
proached the broken place. There were now three 
boys in the water. 

“ This won’t do,” thought he ; and he ran back to 
the shore. There was a man at work, preparing some 
hot-beds, in a garden near by. He had already heard 
the alarm. “ Bring planks ! a rake ! ” cried Lawrence. 

He seized one of the broad board coverings of the 
beds, called shutters, and shoved it out before him 
1* 


10 


AT THE rOND-SIDE. 


on the ice. The man followed with another and a 
long-handled garden-rake. Nothing had yet been 
done for Jake, who had not been seen since he went 
down. Other skaters had arrived; but they were 
engaged in trying to rescue the two boys who had 
fallen in after him. It was perilous business. The 
ice was bending and cracking under them, and they 
could not reach the edge of it without breaking in, 
like the others. Fortunately, both boys could swim, 
and they were sustaining themselves by holding on 
to coats thrown to them over the edge of the ice. 
Thus far, at every attempt to get out, they had only 
broken the ice still more. 

Lawrence pushed his shutter close up to the broken 
place, and, lying flat on his breast upon it, looked 
down into the clear cold water. He could have seen 
the bottom but for the floating fragments of thin ice, 
and the ripples formed by the two boys trying to get 
out. 

“ Keep still ! keep still ! ” he cried ; but that was 
not easy for two boys in their position to do. As 
long as the light reflected from the waves danoed in 
his sight, he could see nothing. So he plunged his 
face into the water, with his eyes open. Beneath the 
surface, they could see very well. And there, lying 
bn the bottom, in about ten feet of water, clinging fast 
to some weeds, with his red tippet on his neck and 
his skates on his feet, was Jake Thornes. 

He was directly under the ice Lawrence was on. 
The plunged face came dripping out of the cold 


HOW THE DROWNED BOY WAS SAVED. 


11 


water. “ The rake ! ” The man handed it to Law- 
rence, who thrust it down, hooked one of the teeth 
into Jake’s tippet, and drew him steadily up. 

The broad shutter distributed the pressure of his 
weight over so large a surface of the ice that it did 
not break, even when he pulled the drenched and 
lifeless body out. 

The situation on the ice being unsafe and awkward, 
the body was quickly slid ashore on the shutter, and 
taken to the gardener’s house, which was close by the 
pond. With the other shutter that had been brought, 
the other two skaters were speedily rescued ; and 
Lawrence had nothing to do but to think of Jake 
and his uncle’s lesson. 

“ I should n’t have stopped to bring him to the 
house,” he said afterwards, “ but Peter insisted on it.” 

Arrived at the house, however, Peter, who was 
ignorant as an owl of what should be done in the 
case, left all to the boy. 

“ 0 yes ! roll him ! ” said he, “ I ’ve heard that was 
good, — to get the water out of him.” 

Lawrence did not stop to explain that the rolling 
process was not to get the water out, for none could 
enter the lungs, but to get the air in. He worked 
vigorously, according to his uncle’s directions. Mean- 
time his uncle was sent for; but he was not at 
home. 

Laid out on Peter’s kitchen-table, his wet clothes 
removed, his limbs loosely wrapped in warm blan- 
kets, and several persons smartly slapping and rub- 



THE DROWNED BOY 









HOW THE DROWNED BOY WAS SAVED. 


13 


bing them, according to Lawrence’s directions, while 
Lawrence himself, with Peter’s assistance, rolled him 
from his breast to his side, and over again upon his 
breast, at the same time keeping a finger at the roots 
of the tongue, — this was the situation in which the 
drowned boy’s mother found him, when, having heard 
the terrible news, she came running to Peter’s house. 

But the peril was now nearly over. Jake had 
gasped slightly once or twice. Then came the agony 
of recovering consciousness, in the midst of which 
the doctor arrived. 

It was then half an hour from the time when Jake 
broke through the ice, and it was evident to all, that, 
if nothing had been done for him all that while, his 
recovery would have been impossible. 

“ Well done ! well done ' ” cried the Doctor. “ You 
have made good use of my lesson, boy ! Woman, 
your child is saved.” 

The hearty praise of his uncle, the joy of the 
mother, and his own consciousness of having done 
a good action, made this the happiest day of Law- 
rence’s life. 


14 


AMONG THE ICE-CUTTERS. 


CHAPTER II. 

AMONG THE ICE-CUTTERS. 

I. 

CUTTING THE ICE. 

rgnjn HE boys — and, I am glad to say, 
the girls too — had enjoyed a few 
days of the very finest skating, when 
one -night there came a fall of snow, 
and the next morning Lawrence, look- 
ing from his window, saw the pond 
covered with a shining white mantle. 

“ Never mind,” said he; “we can 
sweep places to skate on. A good 
skater don’t care for a space larger 
than a parlor floor to practise on.” 

So he went out that afternoon 
with a shovel and a broom to clear 
off a little of the snow. He was 
surprised to find a number of men 
on the pond before him. They had 
long chisel - shaped iron bars, with 
which they were cutting holes in 
the ice, about five paces apart, all 

over the pond. 

“ Look here ! ” cried Lawrence, running up to one 



CUTTING THE ICE. 


15 


of them, “ what is this for ? You ’re spoiling our 
skating.” 

“Your skating is spoiled already,” said the man; 
and click ! click ! his bar went through the ice again. 
“ Our business would be spoiled too, if we did n’t cut 
these holes.” 

“ I don’t see how ! ” 

“ I ’ll tell you how. This coating of snow prevents 
the ice from forming. Snow is warm ; did you know 
it ? A sheep covered up in a drift will live through 
a night that would freeze her to death if she was ex- 
posed to the weather. Just so, a heavy fall of snow 
is the best thing in the world to keep strawberries 
and other plants from winter-killing. It kfeeps the 
pond warm in the same way. Ice will form, to be 
sure, under the snow, but so slow we should n’t get 
half a crop if we did n’t cut these holes and let the 
water through.” 

“ I see,” cried Lawrence. “The weight of the snow 
makes the ice sink a little ; that forces the water up, 
and the water soaks the snow, and then freezes and 
makes ice.” 

“ Yes, but that top-ice — snow-ice , we call it — is 
good for nothing. It ’s only a bother to us, as you 
will see if you are here when we are cutting. But it 
don’t prevent the ice from forming underneath, as 
the snow does.” 

“ I understand, — the ice is a good conductor of 
caloric, and the snow is n’t,” said Lawrence, who had 
learned enough of natural philosophy to come to this 


16 


AMONG THE ICE- CUTTERS. 


conclusion. u But why don’t you have some sort of 
horse-scrapers to scrape the snow off ? ” 

“ We have horse-scrapers, but now the ice is n’t 
strong enough to bear a horse ; that ’s the trouble.” 

“Will it be good skating after the snow soaks and 
freezes ? ” 

“ It will be pretty rough. There ’s a good strip 
along by the Doctor’s shore where we don’t cut ; it is 
kept for skating and fishing. You can sweep the 
snow from that, if you like, and cut holes for pickerel 
too, — a thing that is n’t allowed on any other part 
of the pond.” 

“ How can you prevent it ? Do you own the 
pond ? ” 

“ No, but the ice-company have bought the privi- 
lege of cutting from all the owners around the pond, 
and so control it. Pickerel holes would spoil the ice 
at the time of cutting ; besides, the horses would get 
their legs in them.” 

Lawrence was very anxious to see the work begin. 
He skated meanwhile on his uncle’s shore, and after 
the snow-ice had frozen he went all over the pond, — 
although, as the man had predicted, he found it pretty 
rough. 

Then there came another fall of snow. By this time 
the ice w r as firm enough to bear up horses, and the 
workmen came on it with plank scrapers six feet 
broad, and scraped the snow all up, like hay, in big 
windrows stretching across the pond. 

Then there came still another snow, accompanied 


CUTTING THE ICE. 


17 


by sleet, and followed by rain ; so that, when the 
storm was over, the pond was covered with a coarse 
frozen crust, too hard for the wooden scrapers. This 
brought out the iron-edged scoop-scrapers, formed for 
removing either heavy or crusted snow. Each scraper 
was drawn by a single horse, with a harness which 
consisted of a simple girth and loops for the shafts. 

At last, one bright morning, early in January, Law- 
rence looked from his window and saw that the ice- 
harvest had fairly begun. It was Wednesday ; there 
was no school in the afternoon, and as soon as he 
had eaten his dinner he hastened out to see the ice- 
cutters. 

There were two men fishing on his uncle’s shore. 
Having chopped holes in the ice, they dropped their 
hooks through them, baited with live minnows which 
had been caught in the autumn and preserved in 
tanks for this purpose. Their minnows were in a 
pail ; an axe and three or four pickerel lay on the 
ice ; and each man was watching half a dozen lines 
sunk in different places, a few yards apart, and ad- 
justed so that a bite at either would pull down a rag 
of red flannel set up on a stick for a signal. 

Lawrence, like most boys, took a lively interest in 
fishing. But something of still greater interest at- 
tracted him to-day ; and, stopping but a few minutes 
to watch the sport, he hastened on to the scene of the 
ice-cutting. 

Two or three hundred men were at work on the 
pond, in two divisions, one at the upper and the other 


18 


AMONG THE ICE-CUTTERS. 


at the lower end ; presenting, with their horses and 
ice-saws and ice-hooks and cutters and scrapers and 
planes, a wonderfully animated and busy picture. 

He chose to visit the lower end first, because he 
there expected to find the man whose acquaintance 
he had already made. He saw some men at work 
with a long, straight strip of board and a curious- 
looking instrument, and ran up to them. One got 
down on his face and took sight across the board at 
a target, while the others drew the instrument along 
the edge of it. They thus marked the ice, somewhat 
as a school-boy draws a straight line with a pencil 
and ruler. 

The man who had taken sight got up, and Law- 
rence saw that it was his old acquaintance. 

“So you ’ve come to see the ice-cutting. Well, 
here you have what is properly the beginning of it. 
We are striking a straight line, which is almost 
finished.” 

Three or four more lengths of the board brought 
them to the target, set up by one of the windrows of 
snow. 

“ This board is what we call a straight-edge. Here 
is an arm to it which we now open ; and you see it 
lies on the ice like a carpenter’s square. How we 
are to strike another line at right angles with this ; 
and so we lay out our square-cornered fields of any 
number of acres, which are to be all cut up into such 
cakes as the ice-man brings you in summer. This 
instrument we mark with is called a hand-groove. 


CUTTING THE ICE. 


19 


You see it lias seven steel teeth, set one behind an- 
other, and riveted in this strong iron back. Each 
tooth is a quarter of an inch broad, and forms a 
sharp little plough by itself. The first cuts the 
slightest groove in the ice ; the second is a trifle 
longer, and cuts a trifle deeper ; the third, deeper 
still ; and so on, till the last, which leaves the groove 
an inch and a half deep.” 

“You go all around your field in this way ?” said 
Lawrence. 

“ No, only on two sides. Now see, — here comes 
an odd-looking horse-machine down the line we have 
struck. That is what we call a guide-and-marker. 
The guide is a smooth-edged blade that runs in the 
groove we have cut. The marker is a cutter made on 
the same principle with this hand-groove. The two 
are so fitted and fastened together that, when the 
guide runs in the groove, the marker cuts another 
parallel groove twenty-two inches from it.” 

As the machine approached, Lawrence saw that it 
was drawn by a single strong rope, fifteen or twenty 
feet long, which kept it at a distance from the horse. 
The horse was led by one man, and the machine held 
by its handles, like a plough, by another. The marker 
made a crisp, brittle sound, and threw out fine, bright 
chips, as the teeth cut through the ice ; and after it 
had passed, Lawrence saw that there were two per- 
fectly straight, beautiful grooves instead of one. 

Arrived at the corner of the new field, the horse 
was turned about, and the machine (by means of an 



CUTTING THE ICE. 



CUTTING THE ICE. 


21 


ingenious arrangement) turned over, so that, return- 
ing, the guide ran in the freshly cut groove, and 
another groove was cut by the marker, twenty- 
two inches farther on. 

“ In this way,” said Lawrence’s friend, “ the ma- 
chine goes over the whole field, the last groove it cuts 
forming the boundary of the other side. Then it 
commences on this line, which we are here running 
at right angles with the first, and goes over the whole 
field the other way, cutting it all up into checkers 
twenty-two inches square. The marker cuts a groove 
two inches deep. Now you see another machine fol- 
lowing it, drawn by a horse, just the same. But in- 
stead of being double, like the guide-and-marker, it 
is a single instrument, made up of teeth like the 
marker ; only the teeth are longer, and they cut 
deeper. That we call a four-inch cutter, as it leaves 
the groove four inches deep. That will be followed 
by a six-inch cutter, and that by an eight-inch, and 
that again by a ten-inch. Each cuts two inches, 
which is about as much as a horse ought to be com- 
pelled to do. We have also a twelve-inch cutter, but 
this ice is not thick enough to require it.” 

" Do you cut clear through the ice ? I should n’t 
think that would do.” 

“ No, indeed. This ice is about fifteen inches thick, 
and we shall cut it only ten inches. We have har- 
vested ice when it was only ten inches thick, and again 
when it was twenty-three inches ; but that is rare. 
Sixteen inches is a good average thickness for working.” 


22 


AMONG THE ICE-CUTTERS. 


Lawrence remained with his friend until the second 
line was struck. By this time a new machine, like- 
wise drawn by a horse, made its appearance. It was 
the ice-plane, twenty-two inches broad, running be- 
tween two grooves, and planing off the porous snow- 
ice which has already been described. 

“ Now,” said the man, “ we will see how the ice is 
housed.” And he took Lawrence over a field where 
a hundred men had been at work all the morning. 

It was a busy scene. On one side, the six-, eight-, 
and ten-inch cutters were going. On the other, men 
were breaking off broad rafts of the grooved ice, and 
floating them along a canal which had been cut to 
the ice-houses. Some were cutting through to the 
water with saws. Others were splitting off the sheets, 
the ends of which had been thus cut, with iron bars 
called “ barring-off bars.” Still others, by means of 
“ calking-bars,” were calking with ice-cliips the ends 
of the grooves which were to come in contact with 
the water. 

“ The calking,” said Lawrence’s friend, “ is to keep 
the water from running into the grooves. For if it 
gets into them, it will circulate all through them, 
and then freeze, and the ice will be a solid mass 
again, as if it had n’t been grooved at all. 

“ These rafts, or sheets of cakes, are, you see, 
thirty cakes long and twelve broad. The ends have 
to be sawed; but every twelfth groove — in this 
direction, lengthwise — is cut deeper than the rest, so 
that one man can easily bar off a sheet. Ice splits 


HOUSING THE ICE. 


23 


very easy from top to bottom, but it is hard to split 
it in any other direction. IAy a cake up out of 
water in a warm day^ and it will always begin to 
honeycomb from the top downward. Turning it on 
its side makes no difference with it ; the frost insists 
on taking down its work first where it began to build 
it up. This shows that ice has a grain.” 


II. 

HOUSING THE ICE. 

The sheet of three hundred and sixty cakes, being 
split off, with its grooves all carefully calked around 
the ends and sides exposed to the water, was then 
floated off into the canal, and dragged on towards the 
ice-houses. One man, armed with an ice-hook, — an 
instrument resembling a pike-pole, — sometimes rid- 
ing on the sheet, and sometimes walking by the edge 
of the canal, navigated this checkered raft to the 
slip, where it was broken up with bars into blocks of 
six cakes each, by men standing on the platform. 
Each of these blocks was fastened upon by an iron 
grapple, and taken by two men and a horse up an in- 
clined plane to the summit of a strong staging built 
before the windows of a row of white ice-houses. 
One man guided the horse; the other guided the 
block along the smooth rails with a wooden handle 
attached to the grapple. It was lively work, one 
horse going up after another at a swift pace. At the 


24 


AMONG THE ICE- CUTTERS. 


summit of the staging, the blocks were seized by 
men with ice-hooks, and shoved along the now slight- 
ly declining rails towards the windows where they 
were wanted. Swiftly sliding, one after another, went 
the bright crystal masses, to be seized again by men 
standing at the windows, and whirled into the ice- 
houses, where, layer upon layer, they were stowed away. 

“ As soon as the ice in these is built up to the level 
of this staging, the horses will begin to carry it up 
the next one ” (for there was another staging above 
the first) ; “ from that we shall fill the houses nearly 
to the top ; then the ice will be completely covered 
with hay. Each of these vaults,” continued Law- 
rence’s friend, as they went up and looked into one 
of the great, gloomy buildings, into which the blocks 
went sliding and bouncing, and where several dimly 
seen men were at work taking care of them, looking 
like demons in a pit, — “each of these vaults holds 
five thousand tons of ice. You will see, behind the 
ice-houses, trains of cars loading at the same time. 
The cars take the ice to ships in the harbor, and 
they take it to all parts of the world. We want to 
cut, this year, sixty-five or seventy thousand tons. 
Our two hundred and fifty men will cut about five 
thousand tons a day.” 

Lawrence noticed that the ice-houses had very 
thick wooden walls ; but his friend said : “ Each wall 
is in reality two walls, two feet apart, with the space 
between filled in with tan-bark, which is the best 
thing we have for keeping out the hea|.’ ? 


HOUSING THE ICE. 


25 


“Do you ever cut two crops of ice the same 
season ? ” 

u Seldom. The second freezing makes poor ice 
compared with the first. I don’t pretend to give the 
reason. There is a great difference in the quality of 
ice for keeping. Ice cut in melting weather is 
porous, and won’t keep half as long as ice cut in cold 
weather/’ 

“ It seems to me,” said Lawrence, as they descend- 
ed the inclined plane, “ machinery might be invented 
to take the place of these horses in elevating the 
ice.” 

“ Well, how would you arrange it ? ” 

“ I don’t know ; but I ’ve been thinking you might 
have two wheels, one at the water down there, and 
the other at the top of the ice-house ; have an end- 
less chain pass over them, hung full of grapples ; 
set it in motion by an ordinary steam-engine ; and let 
the grapples catch the blocks of ice in the slip, and 
carry them up an inclined plane to the stagings.” 

The man laughed. “ Go to the other end of the 
pond, and you ’ll find very much such a machine as 
you have suggested. A common steam-engine of 
forty-horse power does the work of a hundred and 
fifty men and seventy-five horses, and does it quicker 
and better. We shall elevate all our ice in that way 
another year.” 

Lawrence hastened to the upper ice-houses, and 
saw, to his delight, the operation of the new machine. 
It was so much like the one he had arranged in his 
2 


26 


AMONG THE ICE-CUTTERS. 


own mind, that lie began to consider himself a great 
inventor. The floating blocks, of two cakes each, 
were fed into a little slip under the lower wheel, 
which revolved just over the water. They were there 
seized by the grapples, which, coming down empty 
on the upper side of the moving chain, returned 
loaded on the under side. 

Stiff ratan brooms, fastened to the platform, swept 
the blocks clean, as the grapples carried them up. 
The crystallized pond- water was thus elevated by this 
chain-pump, and poured into the ice-house windows, 
— the rattling and sliding masses, as they flew along 
the stagings, resembling an endless train of silver- 
bright cars seen on high bridges in the distance. 
There were four stagings, one above another, running 
the whole length of a long row of ice-houses. The 
ice was elevated at one end, so that one machine 
answered for all. The blocks were launched by the 
grapples upon a short inclined plane, which set them 
sliding down the gently sloping staging to the win- 
dows, where they were seized. The houses being 
filled to the level of one staging, the ice was then, by 
a slight alteration in the machinery, carried up to the 
next. 

There was something about this liarvesting of the 
ice so brisk and beautiful that Lawrence remained 
all the afternoon watching it ; and more than once, 
afterwards, he went to spend a delightful hour among 
the ice-cutters. 


TIIE “ GAFFER.’ 


27 


CHAPTER III. 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


I. 


THE “GAFFER.” 


ELL, Lawrence,” said the Doctor, one day, 



shoving his chair back from the dinner- 


table, “how do you think of spending this after- 
noon ? ” 

“ I think I shall finish this piece of pie the first 
thing,” said Lawrence. “ Then, as I Ve no lessons to 
learn, I feel as if I should like to have a good time.” 

“ If you could manage to have what you call a 
good time, and learn something too, how would that 
suit you ? ” Lawrence thought that would suit him 
better than anything else. “ Well,” said the Doctor, 
“ I have business down near the Glass Works ; you 
can go with me, if you like, and perhaps we can 
learn something about making glass.” 

“ Hurrah ! ” said Lawrence, delighted ; and his pie 
went the way of all pie in the hands of boys of fif- 
teen with more than usual rapidity. 

They had just time to walk to the railroad station 
and step on board the down train as it stopped. It 
thundered on again, and in half an hour brought 
them in sight of a building which the boy knew as 


28 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


the Glass Works, and which he had long wished to 
peep into. His heart heat quick with curiosity ; and 
he began to wonder (for he had never given the sub- 
ject much thought before) how such an infinite 
variety of useful and curious articles — window- 
panes, mirrors, vases, beads, goblets, lamps, lenses 
of telescopes and microscopes — were fashioned from 
so brittle a material, and how the material itself was 
made. 

It was a wide-spreading, irregular pile, with brick 
walls, and two immense, tapering, tall, round chim- 
neys soaring up into the blue sky above its roofs. 
The train let them off at a platform near by, and 
then moved on past the rear of the factory. 

“ Glass works always like to be near a railroad or a 
wharf, I find,” said the Doctor. 

Lawrence said he supposed they sent off heavy 
freights. 

“Yes, but those are a trifle compared with the 
freights that come to them. Look ! there is a coal 
train switching off and backing up to the yard. They 
buy fuel by the cargo, as we do by the ton, and stuff 
it up those huge chimneys. But what is so heavy 
when it goes in is light enough when it goes out.” 
They looked up at the cloud which poured out of 
one of the great flues, and stretched away horizon- 
tally, in a long, black streamer, high over the adjacent 
city. “ Some of it flies off in smoke, which we can 
see, but more of it in gases, which we cannot see ; 
and the wind might blow away the ashes. Yet,” said 


THE “GAFFER.’ 


29 


the Doctor, as they walked on, " not an atom of the 
coal is really destroyed ; it can’t be destroyed ; it only 
changes form.” 

Going around to the front of the factory, they 
entered a small door beside a large gate, passed 
through the office, where the Doctor seemed to be 
acquainted, and thence through rooms full of wonder- 
ful things, which Lawrence fished to stop at once 
and examine. But his uncle said, “ No ; we shall 
come around to these in due time. In visiting a place 
like this, -if you really wish to learn much about it, 
the way is to begin at the beginning. Now let me 
see.” 

They entered the spacious rear yard of the factory 
from one side, just as the coal train backed into it 
from the other. 

“ Ah ! there is the gaffer ! ” said the Doctor. “ Do 
you know what a gaffer is ? ” 

“ Laugher, one who laughs ; quaffer, one who 
quaffs; gaffer, one who — gaffs, I guess,” said Law- 
rence, smiling ; “ though what gaffing is, I don’t know 
more than the man in the moon.” 

“ He sees us ; we ’ll ask him,” said the Doctor. 

A short, solid-looking man, in an easy slouched 
hat and a loose business-coat, who was giving a gang 
of men directions about unloading the coal, left 
them, on seeing the Doctor, and came and shook 
hands with him very cordially. Somehow the Doc- 
tor seemed to know everybody. 

“ This is my nephew,” — and Lawrence had the 


30 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


honor of shaking hands with a gaffer. “ By the 
way,” added the Doctor, “ I have often wondered why 
it is you are called a gaffer. What is the meaning 
of the word ? ” 

“ I don’t know ; it ’s a name we ’re called by,” said 
the man. “ The foreman of any other factory than 
glass works is called a foreman or boss, — or super- 
intendent, if you wish to be very smart. But the 
foreman of a glass-house is always the gaffer , — 
though I doubt if any one can tell you why.” 

“ Ah ! I have it ! I have it ! ” cried the Doctor, tap- 
ping Lawrence on the shoulder with his cane in such 
a way that the boy suspected he had “ had it ” all 
the while, — for he was a knowing old head, and he 
had a habit of testing other people’s knowledge of a 
subject before bringing out his own. “ But I sha’ n’t 
tell ; for if it gets out I shall lose the honor of the 
discovery. I ’ll send the word, with the etymology, 
to one of the big-dictionary makers. For you won’t 
find it in any dictionary as a name applied to the 
foreman of a glass-house. “ You ’ll find ‘ Gaffer ; 
AN old man,’ gaffer and gammer being ancient abbre- 
viations of grandfather and grandmother 

“ I have it ! I have it ! ” cried Lawrence, in his 
turn, having caught the bait his uncle threw out ; for 
it was also the Doctor’s habit, in keeping back his 
knowledge of a question, to let fall hints which 
should lead his young friends to solve it for them- 
selves, thus developing theiathinking faculties, and fix- 
ing more securely in their minds what they learned. 


THE “GAFFER.’ 


31 


" What, young man ! have you got my secret away 
from me ? Prove it, ” 

“ Gaffer used to mean grandfather, or old man. 
Now, in some shops, the boss is called old man. 
Just so, I suppose, he used to be called gaffer ; and 
the name has stuck to him, even after its original 
meaning has been forgotten.” 

“ Very well ! capital ! But why is it that it is 
applied only to the glass-house foreman ? ” 

That Lawrence could not explain. But the gaffer 
himself had an idea on that point, which, coming 
from one of the name and trade, was certainly en- 
titled to consideration. 

“ I imagine,” he said, “ that generally the foremen 
of glass-houses were older men than the bosses of 
other trades, for it takes a man who has spent his 
life in the business, and grown gray in it, to take the 
management of it. I believe there is no other trade 
that requires so much care and experience ; that must 
have been especially the case before our modern im- 
provements in building furnaces. Then again, even 
if other foremen were called gaffers, they might have 
lost the name, as it went out of use outside of the 
shop. But while the men of other trades have 
changed their habits and expressions to suit the 
times, glass-makers, until within a few years, never 
changed anything. That was owing to their exclu- 
siveness. They were a class by themselves. Their 
art was a wonderful one; it was the most ancient 
of arts, — it was thought perfect, and not to be im- 


32 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


proved ; they were jealous of its being known to any 
that were not regularly initiated into it ; and so they 
kept it shut up from the world, and surrounded by 
mystery, almost as much as if they had been mem- 
bers of a secret society.” 

“ Well,” laughed the Doctor, “ three heads are bet- 
ter than one, and I think, together, we have sifted out 
the meaning of the word gaffer pretty thoroughly. 
And now for getting at the secrets of this mystic 
order. Gaffer, what have you got to show us ? 
Lawrence, what shall we see first ? ” 

“ Let ’s see where the coal goes, since we have be- 
gun with the coal,” said Lawrence. 

“ Then you ’d like to see the cave,” said the 
gaffer. 


II. 

A VISIT TO THE CAVE. 

Lawrence had no more distinct idea of what a 
glass-house cave was, than he had had of a gaffer. 
But cave sounded romantic. It suggested the sub- 
terranean, — something deep and dark and myste- 
rious. So he said, holdly, that he should like very 
much to see the cave. 

“ Come with me,” said the gaffer. “ We use coal 
for various purposes, but the bulk of it goes the way 
1 11 show you.” 

They were going towards one of the great tower- 
ing chimneys. But, just before reaching it, the gaf- 


A VISIT TO THE CAVE. 33 



THE CAVE. 


fer, to Lawrence’s great delight, turned suddenly and 
stepped down into a passage that dived (romanti- 
cally speaking) deep into the earth. The lad and the 
Doctor followed, leaving daylight and the upper air 
behind them, and now saw before them a great glow 
of fire shining in the midst of surrounding darkness. 
That is to say, in the language of plain fact, they de- 
2 * c 


34 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


scended a flight of steps into a sort of cellar, from 
which, I regret to say, daylight was not wholly ex- 
cluded, and found themselves — But we will let 
the gaffer speak. 

“ Here is where we get our draught. We are now 
under the large chimney, — cone, we call it. It is 
supported by these piers. Right in the centre, be- 
tween them, you see that horizontal grate, with the 
fire from above shining through ; that is in the bot- 
tom of the furnace, — what we call the eye.” 

“ It s an awful, fiery-red eye ! ” said Lawrence. 
u Don’t it look like some horrible, one-eyed dragon, 
shut up there, and glaring down at us through those 
iron bars ? ” 

“ Not at all ; not in the least,” said the Doctor, 
who could be dreadfully prosaic when he saw young 
people inclined to be too romantic. “ It looks to 
me like a very hot fire. I should think your grates 
would burn out fast.” 

“ They last longer than one would suppose,” said 
the gaffer. “ Iron bars like these will stand a couple 
of years. The draught of cold air rushing up through 
them, and the dead cinders accumulating, keep them 
comparatively cool.” 

“ How do you get rid of the clinkers ? ” said Law- 
rence, who remembered his bitter experience cleaning 
the stoves at home. “ I suppose you let the fire go 
out once in a while.” 

“We let this fire go down about once in five or 
six years,” said the gaffer. “ Then it takes three 


A VISIT TO THE CAVE. 


35 


weeks’ steady firing up to get a heat we can work 
with.” 

“Three weeks!” exclaimed Lawrence, astonished. 
“ Then it would hardly pay to let the fire go down for 
the clinkers ! ” 

“ As for them, we just slip the grate one side, and 
cut ’em off from the sides of the eye with an instru- 
ment we drive up from below. We never let the fire 
go down till the furnace burns out. The furnace is 
built inside the cone.” 

“ And where do you melt your glass ? ” 

“In pots set into the furnace, just overhead here, 
as I will show you by and by. Our glass pots are 
closed in, so that no impurities from the fire can get 
into them. That ’s the way pots have to be arranged, 
where flint glass is made. But in furnaces where 
they make common green glass, which they are not 
so particular about, the pots are left open at the top, 
for the advantage of getting the direct action of the 
heat on the melting materials. That lets the flux 
run over into the fire sometimes, and that spoils the 
furnace ; so that green-glass furnaces have to shut 
down about once every year.” 

Just then a being who seemed (to the imagination 
of the lad, at least, — the Doctor had forgotten his 
Arabian Nights some years since), — a being who 
seemed the dark genie of the place, advanced from 
some dismal recess in which he had lain concealed, 
and thrust a ponderous iron spear, or lance, through 
the bars, directly into the eye of Lawrence’s dragon, 


36 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


bringing down from it a sudden shower of fiery tears 
that lighted up the obscurity. In other words, nearer, 
perhaps, to the literal truth, a strong, curly-headed, 
grimy fellow came out from one of the coal chambers 
under the cone, and gave the fire a poke through 
the grate, — using an extraordinarily long and strong 
poker, and fetching down, well, I think we may say, 
without being too fanciful, a meteoric rain of live 
embers, like the sparks from an exploded rocket. 

The being retreated into the darkness ; and now 
Lawrence beheld a wonderful piece of magic, or 
optical illusion. He noticed that the opening between 
the piers, beneath the furnace, extended a long way 
beyond, forming a sort of subterranean gallery, 
awfully gloomy, to be sure, except that now the very 
counterpart of his black genie, who had just thrust 
the iron into the dragon’s eye, appeared, and thrust 
up a similar iron into a similar eye, and brought 
down a similar shower of flaming tears at the end of 
the vista. The whole thing looked so much like a 
reflection, in a wizard’s glass, of the scene he had just 
witnessed, — occurring a few moments behind the 
usual time when reflections in earthly mirrors take 
place, — that he would hardly have been surprised to 
see phantom images of himself, his uncle, and the 
gaffer suddenly make their appearance at the second 
genie’s elbow. 

I am sorry to add that the worthy gaffer immedi- 
ately dispelled the pleasing illusion by saying, “ The 
cave extends under both cones ; there is another open- 


A VISIT TO THE CAVE. 37 

ing at the farther end, opposite to this. You see the 
other fireman poking the other grate.” 

“ Where do you put in the coal ? ” asked the Doc- 
tor. 

“ I ’ll show you. Matthew ! ” 

It was rather disappointing to Lawrence to see his 
swart genie answer to a Christian name, and to 
observe, as he came near, facing them in the glow of 
the furnace fire, that he was, after all, only a harm- 
less, good-natured fellow-creature, notwithstanding 
the coal-dust that blackened him. 

“ Open the teaze-hole,” said the gaffer. 

Matthew led the way towards one of the black 
coal-chambers, and showed a deep, square-shaped 
orifice, leading up, by an inclined plane, through the 
thick brick ribs of the cone, into the furnace. It 
was closed at the farther end by a half-ignited mass 
of soft coal, which had been packed into it, to stop 
the draught in that direction. 

“ This is the teaze-hole, — though how it ever got 
that name is more than I know,” said the gaffer. 
“ Look up in there, and you ’ll see him open it.” 

Matthew took a heavy, long-handled iron imple- 
ment, called a rake, and shoved it clanging up into 
the passage, removing enough of the soft glowing 
mass to let the visitors look in and see the dazzling 
regions of fire beyond, and hear the rushing of air 
and roaring of flame in the freshly opened vent. 
Then he tossed a few shovelfuls of coal into the 
mouth, and shoved them up with his rake through 


38 


AMONG THE GLASS- MAKERS. 


the teaze-hole into the furnace, to show how the thing 
was done ; then the vent was closed again with coal, 
as before. 

“ I see you burn bituminous coal here,” said the 
Doctor. “ How much a day ? ” 

“ This furnace takes about forty tons a week. The 
other one, which is not quite as large, takes less. 
The two average upwards of ten tons a day.” 

Lawrence asked what was the use of so high a 
chimney. 

“That’s to make the draught. The higher the 
chimney, the greater the draught, generally speaking.” 

“ Can you tell why ? ” the Doctor asked Lawrence. 

“ I know heated air expands, and so becomes lighter 
than the same bulk of cold air. Confine it in a 
chimney, and that makes a suction from below ; — as 
the hot air rises, cold air rushes in to fill its place.” 

“ But why will a tall chimney make a stronger 
draught than a low one ? ” 

“ I suppose,” said Lawrence, “ the hot air keeps 
drawing, until it gets out, and is free. It ’s like a 
string of horses attached to anything ; the longer the 
string, the more they will pull. But I should think,” 
he added, “ that a chimney might be built too high. 
If the top gets very cold, I should think that would 
cool the column of air, and deaden the draught ; — it 
would be like having one horse after another drop 
down at the end of the string.” 

“ That, I believe, is the fact,” said the gaffer. “ A 
sheet-iron funnel as high as this cone, exposed to the 


A VISIT TO THE CAVE. 


39 


weather, would make no draught at all to speak of. 
If you build high, you must build thick, so that the 
interior of the chimney will hold its warmth all the 
way up.” 

“ How did people ever manage without chimneys ? ” 
said Lawrence ; “ for I read the other day that they 
were unknown in ancient times, and that they were 
considered a luxury, which only the rich could indulge 
in, even in the age of Queen Elizabeth.” 

“ They made a fire in the middle of the room, 
wigwam fashion, and let the smoke get out through 
a hole in the roof the best way it could,” c aid the 
Doctor. 

“ Glass-makers must have labored under an incon- 
venience,” said the gaffer. “ I have a little book 
called * Keminiscences of Glass-Making,’ which has 
drawings in it of the old-fashioned Italian and French 
glass furnaces. They have no high chimneys ; but 
the smoke is shown coming out of short flues into 
the room where the blowers are at work. Their 
draught must have been very uncertain. A fire must 
have air.” 

“ It is estimated,” remarked the Doctor, “ that for 
every pound of bituminous coal near two hundred 
cubic feet of common air are required to make an 
economical fire, — that is, to mix with and burn all 
the gases ; and that, in a fire like this, the weight of 
the air consumed is greater than that of all the other 
materials that go into the furnace, — coal, ore, every- 
thing.” 


40 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


Lawrence looked astonished. “ In that case,” said 
he, “ when people get in their winter’s supply of fuel, 
and grumble at the cost, they might console them- 
selves by thinking that the biggest part of what they 
burn they get for nothing ; it don’t have to come in 
carts, and they don’t have to settle the bill for it.” 

“And boys of your age don’t get the back-ache 
shovelling it in at the cellar window,” said the Doc- 
tor. “ It comes, as a great many of our blessings do, 
so bountifully and so invisibly, that we don’t appre- 
ciate it. It is well to stop and think of such things 
sometimes.” 

“ Now,” said the gaffer, “ I ’ll show you where the 
melting-pots are made.” 


III. 

THE MELTING-POTS. 

Emerging from the cave, they crossed a corner of 
the yard, and entered a long brick building, in the 
first room of which they found a man at work, on a 
low bench, in the midst of piles of rubbish. 

“ Here is where the clay of the pots that have been 
used up in the furnaces is broken up and cleaned. 
This man, as you see, takes up a piece at a time, and 
knocks off the glazed side, and the side that has been 
in contact with the fire. Then it is ready to be 
pounded up, and used over again.” 

They passed on to a second room, which was long 


THE MELTING-POTS. 


41 


and low and gloomy, and contained several bins, in 
one of which a man appeared, balancing himself on 
a bar laid across it, like a gymnast. 

“ It takes the very best quality of clay for melting- 
pots,” said the gaffer. “ This conies from Stourbridge, 
in England. It is first ground in that hopper, and 
mixed with the burnt clay, then the whole is shov- 
elled into one of these bins, and worked.” 

They turned to the gymnast, who, Lawrence now 
saw, was treading a mass of moist clay with his naked 
feet. Before him was an empty space, extending 
across the bin, into which he presently got down, and 
shovelled back, upon the heap he had been treading, 
more clay from a dense mass at the opposite end. 
Then he got up, steadying his movements by means 
of the bar, and began to tread again. 

“That don’t seem to be very lively work,” said 
Lawrence. 

“ It ’s better than a treadmill,” replied the man. 
“ There ’s variety about it. For variety I go to shovel- 
ling, and then for variety I go to treading.” 

“But you don’t keep at this all the while, — do 
you?” 

“ When I begin a batch, I never leave it, except to 
eat and sleep, till it ’s finished. I can’t give it any 
peace.” 

“ How long do you work it ? ” 

“About seven weeks.” The man looked up at a 
chalk-mark on the wall. “ I have been live weeks 
on this.” 


42 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS* 



TREADING THE CLAY. 

“ Is it possible,” said the Doctor, “ that clay re- 
quires so much manual, or I may say pedal, labor in 
its preparation ? ” 

“ Nothing else will do,” said the gaffer. “ Machin- 
ery has been tried, but there is nothing like the naked 
foot.” 



THE MELTING-POTS. 


43 


“ Could you make as durable pots without putting 
in the burnt clay ? ” 

“ Pots made of raw clay alone would n’t stand at 
all ; they would crack. We must put in the old burnt 
clay to temper them. Now come up stairs.” 

As the gaffer threw open the door of an upper 
room, Lawrence fancied that he was taking them to 
visit a small menagerie. The loft appeared filled with 
monsters. They resembled exceedingly chubby young 
elephant calves, as much as anything. But, what was 
most extraordinary, they were standing about the 
room, a herd of fifty or more, holding up short round 
necks, all with their heads cut off! At a second 
glance he discovered that they were never designed 
to have heads, or legs either ; and that the great hole 
he found in each pitifully uplifted headless neck was 
nothing more nor less than the usual opening into the 
— melting-pot. 

These were the finished pots. Others were unfin- 
ished. There were two workmen in the room, one of 
whom was cutting off slices of a thick clay loaf, 
and making them over into rolls. He cut the 
slices by means of a wire furnished with a wooden 
handle at each end ; and he shaped the rolls with his 
hands. The rolls — which looked like short, moist sau- 
sages, laid side by side on the table — were taken by 
the second workman, and used in building up the pots. 

Lawrence noticed that he worked but a few min- 
utes on one, then went to another, and he inquired 
the reason. 



THE MELTING-POTS 






THE MELTING-POTS. 


45 


“ If I should build a pot right up from the bottom 
With soft clay,” replied the man, “ it would all sink 
down to the floor with its own weight. We must 
leave each pot to dry a little before we add much 
to it.” 

Lawrence noticed how skilfully he applied one end 
of a roll to the mass, and pressed it in, working it 
towards him, around the edge of the pot ; leaving no 
chance for an air-bubble to hide away in it, and ex- 
pand and crack the clay when afterwards subjected 
to heat; shaping and smoothing all with his hand, 
and rounding the top into a dome. The boy watched 
and admired, and said at length he thought it “ quite 
an art.” 

The man had just pressed the end of a roll upon 
the back of one of his monsters, and he left it stick- 
ing out ludicrously like a tail, while he answered, 
“ It ’s no art ; it ’s only a notion. It takes a little 
gumption, and a deal of patience, — that ’s all.” 

“ I ’d rather be you up here than that man treading 
down stairs ; you have some exercise for your wits,” 
said Lawrence. 

“ I ’d sooner be the man down stairs,” replied the 
artist. “ He has no care on his mind but to hear 
the bell, and go to dinner. But I ’m all the while 
in trouble, — fearing my pots won’t come out right, 
dreading they may crack, or something, and I ’ll be 
shown the gate.” And, seizing hold of the tail, he 
proceeded to work it around towards the side until 
it had disappeared in the mass. 


46 


AMONG THE GLASS- MAKERS. 


“ How long will such a pot as this last ? ” 

“ There ’s no telling anything about it. It may 
crack in a week, or it may run four or five months. 
Two made just alike, of the same batch of clay, will 
act that way. There ’s no help for it, but just to 
break ’em up and work ’em over again.” 

“ They are like some people I know,” said the Doc- 
tor, “ who are always in the furnace of affliction, or 
being broken and trodden underfoot, and made ready 
for another turn at the fire. Stourbridge clay is 
much like human clay, after all.” 

“ But this clay gets a little rest in here,” said the 
gaffer. “ We like to have a pot a year old before we 
use it. When one is wanted, we lower it on a truck 
through this trap door, and run it into a pot arch, 
which is nothing but a great oven, or kiln, where it is 
heated by degrees, and left about a week, and then 
taken out red-hot, and run into its place in an arch of 
one of the great furnaces.” 

Lawrence said he should think that must be an 
operation worth seeing ; — a heavy pot like that, red- 
hot ! “ How much does it weigh ? ” 

“ About two thousand pounds.” 

“ And how much does it hold ? ” asked the Doctor. 
“Something like twenty-three hundred- weight of 
material,” said the gaffer. 


WHAT GLASS IS MADE OF. 


47 


IY. 

WHAT GLASS IS MADE OF. 

In the yard below they found a man knocking the 
head out of a hogshead, which proved to be full of 
broken glass. 

“ This we buy to melt over again. Good flint glass 
is worth to us about two cents a pound. This cask 
came from New Orleans ; some of it was perhaps 
picked up by the rag-pickers. Did you ever watch 
them turning over piles of rubbish, or raking the 
gutters with their hooks ? You ’ll see them carefully 
fish out bits of flint glass, and put them into their 
bags, along with old rags, old bones, and pieces of old 
coal. The old rags go to the paper-makers or shoddy- 
makers ; and the old glass, and perhaps some of the 
old bones, come to us.” 

“ What do you do with old bones ?” asked Law- 
rence, seeing a large pile of them in a corner of the 
yard. 

“ We use many different substances in making dif- 
ferent kinds of glass. We use bones — or phosphate 
of lime, which is what bones are mostly composed of 
— in making opaque white glass. Now come into 
the cullet-room.” 

“ Cullet ? — what is cullet ? ” 

The gaffer showed two old women sorting over 
heaps of broken glass, and said “ That is cullet.” 

“ Where did you ever get such a name ? ” 


48 AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 

The gaffer could not tell. But the Doctor said it 
was probably the French cucillctte (from the same root 
as our word cull), meaning a gathering, a picked-up 
lot, a collection (also from the same root), and said he 
thought it applied very aptly to such a curious heap. 

“A vast quantity accumulates about a glass-fac- 
tory,” said the gaffer. “ Sometimes you would think 
more than half goes into the waste-pans, when we are 
blowing. But nothing is wasted. As the old, burnt- 
out pots are good to mix with fresh clay in making 
new ones, so cullet, melted over again with the 
other materials, improves the quality of the product. 
Now for the other materials.” 

“ What ! do you use sugar ? ” said Lawrence, as 
they came to a number of upright open barrels. 

“ Taste it,” said the gaffer. 

“ Sand ! ” exclaimed Lawrence, the moment his 
fingers touched it. “ But don’t it look like pulverized 
white sugar ? Where do you get it ? ” 

“ From Berkshire County. It is washed there, and 
put up wet, to prevent it from sifting out of the bar- 
rels. Here we are drying it in this sand-oven,” — 
and the gaffer showed a heap spread out on a large, 
pan-shaped table, heated from beneath. “ Sand,” he 
added, “ is the principal article in the manufacture 
of flint glass.” 

“ Why do you call it flint ? ” 

“ In the English factories,” said the gaffer, “ it used 
to be made of flint stone, broken up and ground. But 
in this country glass-makers found sand much easier 


WHAT GLASS IS MADE OP. 


49 


to be obtained. They got it at first from Demerara, 
in South America; homeward-bound ships brought 
it as ballast. But the War of 1812 interfered with 
commerce, and compelled them to look at home for 
their sand, as for many other things. At first they 
used the sand of Plymouth Beach, until better vras 
found at Morris Biver, in New Jersey. But a few 
years ago sand of the first quality turned up in Berk- 
shire County. This is almost pure silica. Silica is 
the article required, whether it occurs in flint or 
sand.” 

“ And what do you put with it to make glass ? ” 

“ You can make glass of two materials, — silica 
and an alkali. But it is good for nothing. It has no 
solidity. It will dissolve in hot water. To give it 
density and hardness, we add either lime, or — this 
material.” 

“ Bed sand ? ” said Lawrence. “ No, this is n’t 
sand ! ” — putting his hand into the barrel. “ What 
is it ? ” 

“ Bed-lead,” said the Doctor. 

“ Ground and sifted, ready for use,” added the gaf- 
fer. “ It is not ground fine, like the red-lead painters 
use. This or litharge — which is another form of al- 
most the same substance, and answers the same pur- 
pose — is used in making flint glass. 

“ But what is red-lead ? What is it made of ? ” 

"It is made of common lead, such as you run 
bullets out of. You ’ve noticed, in melting it, that a 
thin skin always forms on the lead, which you call 


50 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


dross, and throw away ? That is a result of the 
mixture of the oxygen of the air with the lead it 
comes in contact with ; that is, so much of the lead 
is oxidized. It is on its way to become litharge, or 
red-lead, which is lead oxidized to the highest degree. 
To make the oxide, they melt lead on the floor of 
a large oven. It becomes a bright lake of melted 
metal, at first ; it is stirred, and kept burning, until 
the last appearance of anything like liquid lead is 
worked out of it. Some glass-factories make their 
own red-lead ; but ours comes from Galena, in just 
this shape, as you see it.” 

“In what proportion do you mix your materials 
for flint glass ? ” 

“ Three parts of sand, two of red-lead, and one of 
alkali, is about as simple a statement as I can make 
of it. That will make you good strong glass. But 
there will be a tinge of green in it, such as you see 
in a pane of common window-glass if you look across 
the edge of it. That comes from a minute quantity 
of iron which is contained even in the purest silica. 
A little arsenic and oxide of manganese take it out, 
or, as we say, decolorize it. Too much lead gives a 
yellowish cast to the glass. The oxides of other 
metals are used to give different colors. In making 
different kinds of glass, the materials may be varied 
indefinitely. Boracic acid may take the place of 
silica. Oxide of zinc may take the place of red-lead ; 
in window and plate glass, lime takes its place. A 
variety of other substances are used to produce cer- 


WHAT GLASS IS MADE OF. 


51 


tain effects. But the common transparent glass-ware 
used in every house is the kind we call flint, and it is 
composed of the materials I have named, — silica, 
oxide of lead, and the alkalies, with arsenic and oxide 
of manganese to decolorize it.” 

“ What do you use for alkalies ? ” asked the Doctor. 

“Pearlash and saltpetre, or pearlash and soda. 
Here is where we purify the saltpetre.” 

The gaffer showed a tank, the bottom and sides of 
which were thickly incrusted with beautiful large 
crystals. " The saltpetre,” he explained, " is dissolved 
in hot water. The liquid is skimmed, and allowed to 
cool. As the crystals form, they exclude all impuri- 
ties, which are drained off with the remaining liquid. 
The pearlash is purified in a different way. It is 
dissolved, like the saltpetre ; but the impurities, except 
what are skimmed off, settle to the bottom, in what 
we call slurry, which we sell to chemical works. The 
liquid is then evaporated in these large caldrons, until 
only the dry, clear pearlash remains.” 

The gaffer then showed where the several materials 
were all thrown together into a tank, and mixed. 
“ They are then ready to be loaded upon this carriage, 
and taken to the blowing-house, — which we will 
now go and see.” 

This was delightful news to Lawrence, who was 
getting tired of these preliminaries, and eager to 
witness the wonders of blowing and working the 
melted material. 


52 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


y. 

THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 

The gaffer led the way into a spacious building, 
full of strange lights and flames and human life. 
Furnaces were glowing ; men and boys were at work 
before the fires, or darting to and fro ; some were 
blowing fiery bubbles, which put to shame all the 
soap-bubbles in the world ; others were shaping the 
glowing metal ; there were noises like the reports of 
pocket-pistols, and sounds of clanging iron, where 
boys were knocking off cold glass from the ends of 
iron rods into small sheet-iron carriages. 

Altogether the scene was so dazzling and confusing 
that Lawrence at first thought there was little chance 
of his learning any more about glass-making here 
than he knew already. First, one had a bubble, then 
another had it ; then it had disappeared, and the man 
who he thought had it was quietly at work on a 
lamp-chimney or a goblet, while he knew no more 
how he came by it than if it had been produced by 
magic. 

"It is magic ! ” he exclaimed. 

“ That was, in old times, the popular notion with 
regard to glass-making ; and I believe glass-blowers 
rather favored the superstition,” said the Doctor. 

“ They used to dress in the skins of beasts, to pro- 
tect themselves from the heat, when they were set- 
ting pots in the furnaces,” said the gaffer ; “ and they 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 


53 


wore great blue or green goggles on their eyes ; and 
sometimes, after the job was done, and they wanted a 
good time, — glass-blowers have always been rather 
fond of a good time, — they would rush out into the 
village in their outlandish rig, and frighten the 
natives, like so many demons” 

“ But they were a superstitious class themselves,” 
said the Doctor. “ They believed in the salamander, 
which was supposed to be generated by the flames 
of a furnace that had been kept burning a great 
while, and to live in them. When any workman disap- 
peared mysteriously, the salamander was supposed to 
have rushed out and caught him, and carried him into 
his den. Or was it only a joke of theirs, gaffer ? ” 

“ The worst salamander that ever carried off a glass- 
blower was the fiery monster we call rum,” said the 
gaffer. “ A good many have been carried off by that, 
and I guess that is what they meant.” 

“Glass-makers have had the reputation of being 
hard drinkers ; why is it ? ” said the Doctor. 

“ They are a hard-working class ; but their work is 
irregular. They have plenty of money, and plenty of 
leisure time to spend it, — a dangerous circumstance 
for a man or a boy, in or out of the glass-house,” added 
the gaffer, with a look at Lawrence. “But glass- 
makers have improved in this respect of late years. 
Look around you ; have n’t we a pretty respectable 
set of men at work here ? ” 

While the Doctor was looking at the men, Law- 
rence took a general view of the building. He 


54 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


counted four separate furnaces. Two were on one 
side, and seemed to be merely large ovens with flam- 
ing mouths. These he was told were the “ leers ” where 
the newly made glass-ware was annealed. Then 
near each end of the building, standing by the great 
chimneys, like dwarfs beside giants, were two small 
round furnaces, blazing at several mouths, called “glory- 
holes,” at which men and boys appeared constantly 
heating and reheating articles of glass to be worked. 

The great chimneys themselves, however, were what 
most astonished Lawrence. They resembled circular 
brick towers, with port-holes of fire ; their tops dis- 
appearing through the high, broad-arched, strongly 
raftered roof. Into the port-holes men were thrust- 
ing iron rods, and taking out lumps of melted metal, 
and shaping them on tables, or blowing them into 
globes, or dropping them into moulds. “ These then,” 
he thought, “ are the big furnaces ; and those port- 
holes must be the necks of the melting-pots.” 

“ We are now standing right over the cave,” said 
the gaffer. “ This furnace has eleven arches ; the 
other has eight ; and in each arch is set one of these 
pots, such as you saw. The crown of the furnace is 
built over them, so as to reflect the heat down on to 
them, and the flues carry it all around them. Look 
in and see the melted metal .” 

Lawrence, shielding his eyes with his hand, ad- 
vanced to one of the port-holes, and saw what seemed 
a pot of liquid fire within, of intensely dazzling 
brightness. 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 


55 


“ How long does it take to melt clown your raw 
materials to that shape ? ” he asked, drawing back, 
with flushed face. 

“ We don’t fill a pot all at once,” said the gaffer. 
“We put in about a quarter or a third of a charge at 
a time ; then, when that melts, another lot. When 
the pots are full, they are closed up, and we push the 
fires ; the materials are fused and mixed by a sort of 
boiling caused by the escape of carbonic acid gas. 
When the materials are of poor quality, a sort of scum, 
called sandiver, or glass-gall, rises to the top, and 
must be skimmed off. The metal is fined , as we say, 
by keeping it for forty or fifty hours at a much higher 
temperature than when we finally begin to work it. 
After the bubbles are all out of it, and it has become 
what we call plain, that is, clear glass, we let it cool, 
a little, regulating the fires so as to keep it in the best 
condition for working. It requires a deal of care and 
judgment to get it right every time. We blow four 
days in the week. Friday and Saturday we clear up, 
fill the pots, set a new one, if one has been broken, 
and get ready for the next week’s blowing. Sunday 
night the glass in the pots is plain ; and at one o’clock 
the first set of hands come on.” 

“ In the night ? how do you like that ? ” Lawrence 
asked a workman who was lighting his pipe of to- 
bacco with a piece of red-hot glass. 

“ Well enough,” said the man. “ I does my work 
and I gits my sleep. We works from one o’clock at 
night till six in the morning, then we goes home and 


56 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


to bed, and t’other set of hands comes on. We 
comes on again at one in the afternoon, and works 
till six in the evening ; then t’ other set takes our 
place, and works till midnight.” 

“ How does the work agree with you ? I could n’t 
stand the heat,” said Lawrence, retreating still farther 
from the furnace. 

“ Glass-blowers is as healthy and long-lived as any 
class of men,” was the reply. “ I never takes cold, 
though some does.” 

So saying, the workman, having lighted his short 
clay pipe, took his long iron pipe, — it was, perhaps, 
five feet long and an inch in diameter, — and thrust 
one end of it into the neck of a pot, and commenced 
turning it. 

“ That is what we call gathering,” said the gaffer. 

When the workman had got what he judged to be a 
sufficient quantity of the melted metal on the end of 
the iron, — it was a lump somewhat larger than a 
butternut, — he took it out, and rolled it on a small, 
polished iron table, which the gaffer said was a 
marver. 

“A corruption of marbre , the French word for 
marble,” said the Doctor. “ The English workmen 
got a good many terms from the French and Italians, 
along with their trade. The marver used to be made 
of marble or stone, did n’t it, gaffer ? and the name 
has gone over to the iron slab.” 

The workman, having reduced the soft lump to a 
shape suitable for his purpose, put the other end of 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS, 


57 



the pipe to his lips, and began to blow. Lawrence, 
watching closely, could see a little bubble of air push 
out into the lump, which at the same time began to 
swell into a bulb. The man continued to blow, and 
the lump continued to expand. Now he held it down 
near the floor, and swung it to and fro, still blowing 
at intervals, and increasing its size, while the motion 
3 * 





58 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


stretched it until it had become a large bulb with a 
long neck. Then he touched the end to the ground, 
to prevent it from expanding farther in that direc- 
tion ; in the mean while the thin glass of the neck had 
become cool, and ceased to enlarge; so that now, 
when he blew again, the thicker and softer glass of 
the sides of the bulb swelled out into a more spherical 
form. It was now shaped something like a small 
gourd, hanging by its straight stem from the end of 
the pipe, and the glass, which had been at a white 
heat at first, had become transparent at the neck, and 
a dull lurid red in the bulb. The workman now took 
an instrument in his hand, and pinched the thick soft 
glass at the extremity of the bulb into a button, like 
a blow at the end of the gourd. 

All this was done in scarcely more than a minute’s 
time ; and Lawrence was amused to observe that the 
blower, while producing these magical effects with his 
iron pipe, had never once taken the clay pipe out of 
his mouth. 

“ How can you blow and smoke at the same time ? ” 
he asked, as the man stood twirling his glass gourd in 
the air, waiting for a boy to come and take it. “ I 
should think you would blow the smoke and tobacco 
out of your pipe.” 

“ O, I just claps my tongue over the end on ’t, and 
stops the hole, when I blows,” was the answer. 

A boy now ran up and took tlie iron tube with the 
glass on its end. Lawrence followed him, convinced 
that the only way of learning how any article was 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 


59 


made was to watch it from the beginning through 
each stage of the process. 

The boy handed it to a workman sitting on a chair- 
shaped bench with strong, straight arms, across which 
he laid the iron, with the glass at his right hand. 
Turning the rod, by rolling it under his left hand, like 
a lathe, he gave the button another pinch, and then 
knocked it off. The end of the gourd now had a 
small hole in it. 

“ Notice the instrument he uses,” said the gaffer. 

“ It looks like a pair of sheep-shears,” said Law- 
rence, “ only the blades are duller. What do you 
call it ? ” 

“ The old name, pucellas, has about gone out of use 
with us. We call it simply a pair of tools. They are, 
pre-eminently, the glass-blower’s tools , — he shapes 
everything with them.” 

The workman in the mean while had handed the 
pipe back to the boy, who thrust the glass into the 
flames of one of the “glory-holes.” 

" It is coal tar that gives that hot flash,” said the 
gaffer. " In the other glory-hole furnace, over yonder, 
we burn rosin. He is heating the glass again, so that 
it can be shaped.” 

It was but the work of a few moments ; and the 
glass was handed, glowing, back to the workman, 
who had in the mean while taken the button off from 
another precisely similar glass, which had been hand- 
ed him by another boy. This he now exchanged for 
the first. He laid the pipe across the arms of his 


60 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


bench, as before, and, turning it rapidly under his 
hand, pushed the point of one blade of his sheep- 
shears, or “ tools,” into the hole left by the knocked- 
off button. Having opened it a little, he inserted 
both points, and gradually enlarged the hole, now to 
the size of a penny, now to that of a dollar, and 
lastly to that of a little tin cap that he fitted to a 
rim, which, in working, he had turned outward upon 
the edge of the glass He used the cap as a measure, 
and it was laid aside when the rim was found to be 
of the right circumference. It was less than a 
minute’ s work, and that end of the gourd was fin- 
ished. But it was no longer a gourd ; it was a lamp- 
chimney. 

Another boy now came forward with another iron 
rod, closely resembling the blowing-pipe, except that 
it had no hole through it. 

“ That is what we call a ponty or pontil” said the 
gaffer. 

On the end of the ponty was a little wheel of red- 
hot glass. Applied to the bottom of the lamp-chim- 
ney, it fitted the opening. The workman then touched 
the top of the chimney, where it joined the blowing- 
pipe, with cold steel, and cracked it off. The chim- 
ney was then taken away, sticking to the glass wheel 
on the end of the ponty. 

“ That is what we call reversing it,” said the gaffer. 

The top of the chimney was now heated at the 
glory-hole, as the bottom had previously been, and 
afterwards, when soft, smoothed and shaped by the 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 


61 


workman. This done, lie gave the opposite end of the 
ponty a gentle knock, and the chimney fell off from 
the little glass wheel. One boy took it up on a stick, 
and placed it in a box packed nearly full of chim- 
neys ; while another reheated the glass wheel at the 
end of the ponty, and a third carried a blowing-pipe 
to one of the little sheet-iron carriages, or “pans,” and 
knocked off the cold glass left by the last article that 
had been blown upon it. 

Lawrence now watched another blower. He gath- 
ered on his pipe a larger lump of metal than the 
first, rounded it on a marver, and blew it into a sun 
prisingly large and beautiful bubble, which put on all 
the colors of the dying dolphin, as the light shone 
upon its cooling surface. He held it down and 
swung it, to lengthen it ; or he held it above his head, 
to flatten it at the poles ; he whirled it, to perfect the 
sphere ; he pinched a button out of the thick soft 
glass that seemed forming into a large drop at the 
end of it ; and finally exchanged it, pipe and all, for 
a clean pipe, with which he proceeded to blow 
another. 

A second workman then took the bubble, knocked 
off the button, and fashioned it very much as his fel- 
low had fashioned the lamp-chimney. But, instead of 
coming out of his hands a lamp-chimney, it came out 
a beautiful, large lamp-globe. This a boy took, and 
hastened with it to one of the leers, or annealing 
ovens. 

A third was blowing a small balloon of glass, giv- 


62 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


ing to it gradually the form of a cylinder, — flattening 
the end by spatting it down smartly upon a marver 
on the ground. When reversed on a ponty, it was so 
large and heavy, and it swayed and staggered so, that 
Lawrence thought surely it would break off and fall. 
But the boy who had it, by skilfully balancing it, and 
turning the ponty, kept it on, until the glass had har- 
dened sufficiently to remain in position, while he 
heated the opposite end at a glory-hole. This being 
shaped, the article turned out to be a glass jar of 
large size. 

In surprising contrast with this was the making of 
that most exquisite of all drinking-vessels, the small, 
delicate wineglass. 

“ Watch these two men,” said the gaffer. 

One was blowing a thick bubble no bigger than a 
thimble ; the other was blowing one somewhat larger. 



“ They are both at work on one glass. This larger 
bubble is to be the bowl. Now look.” 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 


63 



The blower drew out the soft metal from the end 
of the bubble into a slender stem. The other 
blower now brought his smaller bubble, stuck the 



bottom of it to the end of the stem, and then by 
a touch of cold steel, cracked it off from his pipe. 
The chief blower now had at the end of his pipe 
two bubbles, with a stem between them, and with a 
hole in the end of the outer and smaller bubble. 
This, softened at the furnace door, was not only 
opened by the tools, but turned completely inside out, 


64 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


and flattened into a perfect little wheel on the end of 
the stem, thus becoming the foot of the wineglass. 

The glass was then reversed on a ponty, and taken 
to a third workman, with now a hole in the larger 
bubble, where it, in its turn, had been cracked off 
from the pipe. This hole was enlarged by the tools, 
and the rough edge of the soft glass trimmed off with 
a pair of scissors, as a tailor would trim a hit of cloth. 
The half-closed bowl was then held in the furnace 
until it seemed soft and tremulous as melting wax, 
and was thrown open to its proper wineglass shape 
simply by the centrifugal force given to it by the 
ponty whirled in the workman’s skilful fingers. A 
few light touches afterwards, and the article was per- 



fected, — as delicate and graceful a little gem of a 
glass as could be made anywhere in the world. 

“ There, Doctor ! ” said the gaffer, “ you might give 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 


65 


the remainder of your natural life to the business 
and you could never do that ! That man began to 
work in glass when he was a boy, and it has become 
second nature with him, like speaking his native 
language. He has handled the blowing-pipe and the 
ponty until they are like parts of his own hands. 
He almost feels the glass on the end of them.” 

The Doctor expressed his suprise at the quickness 
of the operation, and the simplicity and cheapness of 
the tools employed. 

“ All the tools he uses,” rejoined the gaffer, “ do not 
cost more than fifteen dollars, and they will last him 
his life.” 

“ What is this ? ” said Lawrence, picking up a piece 
of glass from the floor. “It looks like a broken 
thermometer-tube.” 

“ It was blown for one,” said the gaffer. 

“ Blown ? — so small ! ” exclaimed Lawrence. “ I 
can’t find any hole in it.” 

“It has a hole — or bore , as we call it — of the 
usual size; but it is flat. That is to make a very 
little mercury look to be a good deal. Do you see 
a narrow white strip running the length of the 
tube ? ” 

Lawrence saw it, and said he had often observed 
the stripe in the backs of thermometers, but had 
never learned what it was for. 

“It is a background to see the mercury against. 
Would you like to see such a tube made? Come 
> here. Watch this man.” 


66 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


With delight and curiosity Lawrence watched. 
The man was gathering a lump of metal from one of 
the pots. He blew into it gently, and shaped it on a 
marver, flattening it until it resembled in form and 
size the part of a sword-hilt that is grasped by the 
hand. 

“ In flattening it,” said the gaffer, “ he flattened the 
bubble of air he had blown into it.” Lawrence 
looked, and could see the bubble, about as broad as 
his finger, extending through the glass. “ That is to 
be the bore of the thermometer, — though of itself it 
is now larger than two or three thermometer tubes. 
Now they are going to put on the stripe.” 

A boy brought a lump of melted, opaque white 
glass on a ponty. It was touched to the now hard- 
ened sword-hilt, and drawn from end to end along the 
flat side, leaving a stripe about as broad as a lady’s 
finger. The sword-hilt, with the stripe carefully 
pressed down and hardened upon it, was now plunged 
into a pot of melted glass, and thickly coated ; the 
soft exterior was rounded on a marver, until the 
entire body of glass, enclosing the stripe and the flat- 
tened bore, was in size and shape a little longer and 
considerably larger than a banana. 

This w r as now slowly heated to a melting state. 
Then came forward a boy with a ponty, bearing on its 
end a piece of glass resembling an inverted conical 
inkstand. This he set upright on the ground, the 
bottom of the inkstand uppermost. The blower, with 
the melting lump, now advanced, and held it over the 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 


67 


ponty, until the soft mass drooped down and touched 
the bottom of the inkstand, to which it adhered. 
The man and the boy held the lump a moment be- 
tween them; then, at a word of command, the boy 
shouldered his ponty, like a very large staff with a 
very small bundle on the end of it, and set out to 
travel. As he ran in one direction, into a work-room, 
the man backed off in the other, the glowing lump 
stretching between them, like some miraculous kind 
of spruce gum. In a minute they were seventy or 
eighty feet apart, with a gleaming cord of glass, 
smaller than a pipe-stem, sagging between them. 
This was presently lowered, laid out at its full length 
upon the ground, and broken from what was left of 
the lump at the ends. 

Even the Doctor, who had hitherto said little, now 
expressed his astonishment and admiration, exclaim- 
ing, “ It is marvellous ! it is truly marvellous !” 

“ Of course,” said the gaffer, “ the bore stretches 
with the tube, and keeps its flattened shape. So does 
the stripe.” 

“ But what keeps the tube of uniform size ? Why 
don’t it break ? ” said Lawrence. 

“ The reason is this. As the glass runs out thin, it 
cools, and stops stretching, while it continues to draw 
out the soft glass from the thicker parts at the ends. 
If we wish to make a small tube, we stretch it quick # 
without giving it much time to cool. To make a 
large tube, we stretch slower. Here is a piece of 
barometer tubing, stretched in the same way ; so is 


68 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


this lot of homoeopathic medicine vials.” The “vials” 
were a small stack of hollow glass canes, about five 
feet in length, standing in a comer of the work- 
room, into which the visitors had followed the boy. 
“ Though, of course,” added the gaffer, “ to make 
them, we don’t flatten the bore, but only blow it 
larger.” 

“ Then how are vials made out of these tubes ? ” 

“ They are cut into pieces of the right length, then 
the bottoms are melted and closed in by means of a 
common blow-pipe, such as chemists use.” 

Lawrence was about to ask a similar question with 
regard to the thermometers, when a man came along, 
and, stooping, commenced cutting the long tube into 
uniform lengths of about five feet, and packing them 
together into a narrow, long box. 

“ These,” said the gaffer, “ he sends to his shop in 
Boston, — for he is a thermometer-maker ; there they 
are cut up into tubes of the right length ; an end of 
each one is melted and blown out into a bulb, — the 
tube itself serving as a very small blowing-pipe. To 
avoid getting moisture into the bulb, air from a small 
india-rubber bag is used, instead of breath from the 
mouth. As the bag is squeezed at one end, the bulb 
swells at the other.” 

“ Then how is the mercury put in ? So small a 
bore ! ” said Lawrence, trying to find it with a pin 
point. 

“ The glass is heated, and that expands the air in 
it, and expels the greater part of it. As the air that 


THE GLASS-BLOWERS. 


69 


is left cools and contracts, it is made to suck in the 
mercury. To expel the rest of the air, the mercury 
is boiled in the tube. When there is enough mercury 
in the tube to fill it, at as high a degree of tempera- 
ture as it is expected ever to go, the end is softened, 
bent over, and closed up. As the mercury cools and 
contracts, it leaves a vacuum at the upper part of the 
tube.” 

As Lawrence stood aside to make room for the boy, 
who was stretching another eighty-foot tube, the 
gaffer continued : — 

“Glass beads and bugles are made in much the 
same way. Glass of any desired color is used. It is 
blown, and stretched into tubes a hundred feet long 
or more. These are broken up into bits of the right 
length for the required bead. To make a round bead, 
the bits are put into a sort of mud, made of sand and 
ashes, and worked about in it till the holes are filled 
up. They are afterward put into a heated cylinder, 
along with sand ; the cylinder is made to revolve, and 
the motion, with the friction of the sand, wears down 
the edges of the softened glass till the beads become 
round, — the sand and ashes in them preventing the 
sides from flattening.” 


70 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


VI. 

MOULDING AND PRESSING. 

The gaffer now took his visitors around to another 
side of the blowing-room, and showed them the pro- 
cess of blowing glass into a mould. This was of cast- 
iron, and worked by a boy, who opened and shut it 
by means of handles. The blower gathered the 
melted glass, rolled it on a marver, blew into it 
slightly, then dropped it, in a long, purse-shaped, 
glowing lump, into the open mould. This was imme- 
diately closed by the boy ; then the blower blew until 
a bubble, pushed up on the top of the mould, ex- 
panded to the size of a football, and to the thinness 
of the thinnest transparent film, and finally burst 
with a loud pop, flying into shreds of tinsel, light as 
feathers. The mould was then opened, and a caster- 
vial with figured sides was exposed. This was taken 
up by a second boy on a “ snap-dragon,” — a rod 
something like a ponty, but with a socket at the end 
for holding articles of glass, — and carried to a glory- 
hole, where the round, open top was heated. It was 
then passed to a workman seated in a chair, who 
shaped the top, and pressed into it a piece of iron 
called a “ lip-maker.” The top was then a mouth, and 
the vial became a “ vinegar,” as the boys called it. 
Another man was blowing “ mustards,” in the same 
way ; and a third was blowing " inks.” 

“ Does it blow easy ? ” Lawrence inquired of the 
last. 


MOULDING AND PRESSING. 


71 


“ It don’t require much effort,” said the man ; and, 
having his glass all ready to drop, he put the pipe 
into Lawrence’s hand, who lowered the stretching, 
purse-shaped lump into the mould, and blew. He 
blew till a bubble sprang up on the top of the mould, 
and cracked like a pistol : then with a laugh gave 
back the pipe to the man. The mould was opened, 
and a nice little inkstand came out. 

“ You shall keep that to remember us by,” said the 
gaffer. “ But don’t touch it yet ! ” — as Lawrence 
was about to handle it. “ It ’s hissing hot ! I ’ll 
mark it so we shall know it again.” 

This done he took up a handful of the glass tinsel 
from a heap formed by the breaking bubbles, crushed 
it, threw it in the air, and said, as it fell in a glitter- 
ing shower, “ This is the diamond dust ladies pow- 
dered their hair with a few years ago.” 

As they passed on, he continued : “ You have now 
seen the two processes by which blown glass is made, 
— the simple blowing, which is as ancient as the time 
of Moses, and the modern process of blowing into 
moulds. Here is something else.” 

A workman, who had gathered some metal, dropped 
it, without blowing at all, into an elaborately con- 
structed mould, the several parts of which were 
opened and closed by means of at least half a dozen 
handles. The soft, glowing glass being securely shut 
into it, the mould was shoved under a strong hand- 
press, and a plunger brought down forcibly into it by 
a man at the lever. The plunger being lifted, and 


72 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


the mould opened, a cream-pitcher appeared, with the 
handle, all complete. 

“ This,” said the gaffer, “ is wliat we call pressing. 
It is claimed by some as an American invention. 
Whether it is or not, it is quite modern, and it has 
been carried to a higher degree of perfection in this 
country than anywhere else. Here is a press that is 
making a large preserve-dish, elaborately figured, a 
really elegant article. It is done, you see, almost in 
a moment. Here is another man working two differ- 
ent moulds, and turning out two hundred small pre- 
serve-plates in a minute. You can see by this how 
much the use of moulds must have done towards 
cheapening the price of glass. And, really,” he added, 
“we are making pressed glass nowadays that is al- 
most as clear and beautiful as blown, — though of 
course there is a popular prejudice in favor of the 
blown article, since it is more expensive.” 

Lawrence asked a workman who was cutting off 
the melted glass from the ponty, as it dropped into a 
mould, if it “cut easy.” 

“ Well, about as easy as stiff dough cuts. Try it.” 

And Lawrence, applying the shears, clipped off a 
lump, which, pressed in the mould, came out a grace- 
ful goblet 


PLATING AND ANNEALING. 


73 


VII. 

PLATING AND ANNEALING. 

“ Now,” said the gaffer, “ I believe you have seen, 
about everything.” 

“ No,” said Lawrence ; “ I have n’t seen how you 
make glass of two different colors, — a lamp-shade, 
for instance, which is all red, perhaps, except where 
there are figures of transparent glass.” 

“ Let me see,” said the gaffer, looking about him. 
“We are not doing any plating to-day. But we will 
do some, to show you.” 

Lawrence begged he would not give himself any 
trouble. 

“ That is what I shall say when I go to visit you 
some time. ‘ Don’t give yourself any trouble for me,’ 
I shall say to your aunt. But she will give herself 
trouble, and T trust it will be a pleasure for her to do 
so. Now I must give myself trouble, to show you 
how glass-plating is done ; and it will be a pleasure.” 

He gave orders to some men, who stopped the work 
they were at to assist him. A piece of hard ruby 
glass, previously prepared, was melted on the end of a 
ponty ; two soft lumps of it were taken off on the 
ends of two blowing-pipes, — “ for I am going to show 
you two different ways of plating,” said the gaffer. “ I 
am going to make two ruby cups. To save the col- 
ored glass, which is costly, we put a thin plate of it on 
a body of flint glass. This lump I shall put on the 

4 


74 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


outside of the first cup. The lump on the other pipe 
will go on the inside of the second cup. Now look 
sharp. 

lie blew the first lump into a bowl-like shape. 
“ This,” said he, “ is the shell.” It was broken off' 
and placed in a secure position on the ground, with 
the opening uppermost. Then a lump of soft flint- 
glass was brought, of which the gaffer blew a bubble 
into the ruby shell until it filled it. The mouth of 
the shell was then closed in upon the flint, and the 
two completely welded into one hollow globe. This 
was now made thoroughly soft at the fire, blown, re- 
versed, opened at the end, trimmed with scissors 
about the edges, and finally shaped into a cup. But 
it had no handle. The melted piece of ruby was 
accordingly brought again, touched to the top of what 
was to be the back of the cup, stretched out, and a 
stick three or four inches long, resembling a stick of 
soft, stretching, bright red candy, clipped off. This, 
adhering to the top of the cup, w T as stretched upward 
an inch or two farther, then bent backward, curved 
inward, and pressed to the back of the cup near the 
bottom. One or two little touches to give it a grace- 
ful form, and the handle was finished. 

He kept the second cup along in nearly the same 
stages of shaping as the first, working on one while 
his assistants were reheating the other. The process 
of shaping was the same with each. But the process 
of plating the second on the inside was much simpler 
and easier. The lump of ruby was immersed in 
melted flint, coated with it, and then blown. 


PLATING AND ANNEALING. 75 

“ Why don’t you do all your plating in that way ? ” 
asked Lawrence. 

“We do, unless we wish to produce the effect you 
have noticed on the lamp-shades. For that the ruby 
must be on the outside. The transparent figures are 
cut through it into the clear glass, — as you will see 
when you visit the cutting-room.” 

The gaffer then presented the two cups to Law- 
rence, — one for himself, and one for his little cousin 
at home. 

“ But,” said he, “ they must be annealed before you 
can take them.” 

“ What is annealing ? ” 

“Come this way,” said the gaffer. “This is the 
leer. Look in.” 

Lawrence looked in through the wreaths of thin, 
undulating flames that poured out of the mouth of 
the oven, or flowed away in graceful waves and 
curves under the long, low vault within, and saw a 
thickly clustered row of glass articles stretching far 
away towards an opening where daylight shone at 
the opposite end of the leer. 

“ Here are four leers,” said the gaffer, “ two on 
each side of this passage. From this end, where the 
glass goes in, to the other, where it is taken out, the 
distance is eighty feet. The glass is placed on pans, 
which are hooked together; so that, when one is 
drawn forward at the other end, that draws the whole 
string forward. When a pan is emptied at that end, 
it is sent back, and hooked on and filled again at this 





THE LEEK 






PLATING AND ANNEALING. 77 

end. There is your little inkstand, beginning its 
journey in grand company, — fruit-dishes, and ruby 
and blue lamp-shades, which look pretty enough 
under the rolling flames. I ’ll put your ruby cups 
near them, and leave directions at the other end with 
the man who will take them out : he will bring them 
to me.” 

“ How long will it take them to go through ? ” 

“ About twenty-four hours. The fire is at this end 
of the oven. As the articles pass through, they 
cool very slowly, and come out almost cold at the 
other end. In this way we give the particles of glass 
time to get acquainted, and to nestle together com- 
fortably and contentedly before they harden. That 
makes them fast friends. Your cups and inkstand 
would be apt to break the first time you used them 
if they were not annealed.” 

“ I see you send nearly everything to the leers, 
except the lamp-chimneys,” said the Doctor. 

“Yes. The thinner the glass the less liable it is 
to crack from exposure to heat and cold. The lamp- 
chimneys are of such uniform thinness throughout 
that we don’t consider it necessary to anneal them.” 

“ I advise you to anneal them,” said the Doctor. 
“ I believe we have cracked half a dozen in my house 
within a week or two, and we are getting tired of 
them. I am quietly reading my newspaper of an 
evening, when — snap ! — another broken chimney.” 

“That’s because you don’t buy your chimneys of 
us,” said the gaffer, laughing. 


'78 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


VIII 

CUTTING AND ORNAMENTING. 

Walking through the passage between the leers, 
they entered what is called the “ sloar-room,” where 
the glass was taken from the pans and put into boxes, 
to be sent up to the cutting-room. 

“ You must go up there now,” the gaffer said to 
Lawrence. “As it is a separate department from 
mine, I will just go up and introduce you to the fore- 
man and leave you. This way; we may as well 
ride.” 

He stepped on what appeared to be a trap-door, 
supported by strong uprights. Lawrence and his 
uncle stepped on beside him. A bar was put up, and 
they were enclosed in a little square pen. The gaffer 
then pulled a lever beside one of the uprights, and 
the trap-door, little square pen, passengers and all, 
began to ascend towards an opening in the floor over- 
head ; having reached the level of which it stopped, 
the bar was let down, and Lawrence and his com- 
panions stepped off in the midst of the cutting-room. 

This was a long, large room, full of whirling wheels 
and the sound of grinding. Overhead, running the 
entire length of the building, was a power-shaft, 
which, with its many wheels and bands, set in motion 
a second range of wheels below, and at these a long 
line of workmen and workwomen were grinding 
various articles of glass. Over this lower range of 


CUTTING AND ORNAMENTING. 


79 


wheels was a row of queer-looking, tunnel-shaped 
wooden tubs, called hoppers, set in a strong frame- 
work, and filled with water, or with sand and water, 
which dripped upon the wheels. 

The Doctor, looking at his watch, and remembering 
the business which had brought him to the vicinity 
of the glass-house, departed with the gaffer ; and 
Lawrence was left with the foreman of the cutting- 
room. 

“ But where do you cut the glass ? ” the boy in- 
quired ; for he had expected to see diamonds employed 
in the operation. 

“What is commonly called glass-cutting,” replied 
the foreman, — < a very obliging elderly person in shirt- 
sleeves and white apron, — “ is nothing but grinding 
in some shape. Cutting with diamonds is a very 
different thing: we don’t do anything of that kind 
here. 

“ Regular glass-cutting,” he continued, “ is done by 
three processes. Here is the first.” 

He showed a man working at a wheel wet with 
sand and water dripping from its companion hopper. 
The wheel was of iron, and the sand made a sharp, 
rough grit upon it. To this the man held with firm 
hands the stem of a goblet, very much as a knife is 
held to a grindstone. The stem was round as it came 
from the hands of the blower, and he was grinding it 
into angles. 

“ You notice,” said the foreman, “ that the edge of 
the wheel is shaped for the kind of work it is doing. 


80 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


We use iron and sand first, because they cut faster 
than anything else. But you see how rough they 
leave the surface. Now see the second process. This 
wheel is of fine stone, and only water drips on it from 
the hopper. This man takes the glass as the other 
leaves it, and grinds off the rough surface. But it 
still has a dull look, as you see ; and that brings us 
to the third process. Here the dull surface is polished 
on a wooden wheel, with pumice-stone and water. 
Bor the finest work, a cork wheel is used, with what 
we call putty, — a paste composed of lead and tin.” 

“ Hallo ! ” said Lawrence, “ this is what I wanted to 
see!” as he found a man finishing round facets that 
had been cut through the thin colored shell of a ruby 
lamp-shade into the transparent glass beneath. 

The foreman was now called away, and Lawrence 
was left to wander about as he pleased. He watched 
for a long time a number of men cutting caster-bot- 
tles, wondering at the rapidity with which they turned 
them from angle to angle on the stones. He saw one 
man fitting glass stoppers to decanters, — a simple 
process by which they were made air-tight. The stop- 
per, set fast in a lathe, was set whirling, and ground 
down roughly at first with a piece of sheet-iron in 
sand and water. It was then inserted in the neck 
of the decanter, and ground on that until it fitted. 
Three or four workmen were cutting stars in the bot- 
toms of preserve-dishes, while others were simply 
taking off the rough spot left by the ponty on the 
bottoms of articles that had been blown. 


CUTTING AND ORNAMENTING. 


81 


At one end of the room some women were at work 
on transparent lamp-globes, which had come up from 
below in a large packing-box. A globe was taken, 
attached to a lathe, and set whirling over a trough 
half filled with sand and water. In one hand the 
workwoman held a stiff wire brush, which she pressed 
upon the glass, while she applied to it sand and water, 
in profuse quantities, dipped up from the trough with 
the other hand. In this way she ground thoroughly 
the glass about the two ends of the globe, rendering it 
white and opaque, but leaving a broad belt about the 
centre untouched. She then stopped the lathe, took 
off the globe and rinsed it, showing the polar regions, 
so to speak, white with frost, which extended well 
down into the temperate zones, while the torrid zone 
remained crystal clear. She told Lawrence the pro- 
cess was called “ roughing.” 

He followed the globes from her hands to those of 
a workman sitting at a narrow-edged grindstone, on 
which he was ornamenting the transparent space be- 
tween the ground parts. Now he was cutting buds 
and petals, now leaves, and now a waving stem sur- 
rounding the globe like a tipsy equator, uniting the 
whole in a graceful garland of flowers. His cuts on 
the glass were not afterwards polished, but were left 
white and opaque. 

Lawrence asked if he called his work engraving. 

“ It is a sort of coarse engraving ; but we call it 
simply cutting,” replied the man. “ The real engrav- 
ing is done at the upper end of the room.” 


62 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 



CUTTING A LAMP-GLOBE. 


Thither Lawrence went, and saw the difference ; 
yet the engraving, too, was only a species of grinding. 
The engraver sat on a high stool before a swiftly 
whirling little copper wheel, not more than two 
inches in diameter. To the edge of this lie touched 
occasionally a mixture of oil and emery, in a little 
shallow dish, then pressed firmly upon it the article 
he was engraving. 


CUTTING AND ORNAMENTING. 


83 


He was ornamenting the sides of goblets and wine- 
glasses. On one he was cutting an initial letter, en- 
circled by a delicate wreath. Lawrence asked if he 
had a pattern to go by. 

“ I make my own patterns, and carry them in my 
head mostly,” replied the artist. “ For this design, I 
just make four marks for the top and bottom of the 
letter. The wreath I do without making any marks 
first.” 

As the side he was engraving was necessarily held 
from him, and he could see where he was cutting only 
by looking through the glass from the other side, Law- 
rence wondered how he could do such fine work. The 
artist, seeing him interested, showed him still finer 
specimens. One was a fairy-like goblet, the surface 
of which was surrounded and filled up by the grace- 
fully bending sprigs and drooping flowers of the 
fuchsia. Another was a landscape, showing a hunter 
and his dog in natural attitudes, and a partridge ris- 
ing on the wing before the uplifted gun ; and there 
were many more equally beautiful. 

“ Is it possible you do all this with a wheel ? ” 

“I use a variety of wheels. Each has an edge 
shaped for the kind of work it does. Here is the 
smallest.” It was scarcely bigger than a pin-head. 
“ I ’ll show you a design — this is it — that required 
nine different wheels in the cutting.” 

“ But you must understand drawing ? ” 

“ 0 yes. When I began as an apprentice, thirteen 
years ago, I was set to work at first on broken glass. 


84 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


making dots and lines, like a school-boy learning to 
write. Then I made them on whole glass which we 
were not very particular about. At the same time I 
gave my evenings to the study of drawing. I worked 
hard ; but a man can’t accomplish much in this world 
unless he does apply himself. ” 

“ Is it the copper wheel that cuts the glass ? ” 

“No; it is the emery we put on the wheel.” 

“ Do you work nights ? ” 

“ Not often. But sometimes, when we have orders 
we are in a hurry to get done, I take a little work 
home with me in the evening.” 

“ How do you do it at home ? Your lathes here go 
by steam-power, don’t they ? ” 

“ Yes ; but I have a foot-lathe at home T can do my 
work on, though it is harder. In some of the English 
factories glass-engravers use foot-lathes altogether. 
Labor is cheap there.” 

“ With the exception of this ornamental work, 
what is the great difference between cut glass and 
common glass ? I see they go to work and grind 
down the round stems and sides of blown goblets into 
just such shapes as they press other glass in.” 

“In the first place, blown glass is freer from waves 
and wrinkles ; and the angles on cut glass are much 
sharper and cleaner than on pressed glass. Al- 
though,” added the engraver, admiring the perfection 
of a pressed goblet, “ they are getting to do some of 
their pressed work so well, tl at, with a little sub- 
sequent burnishing, it almost equals the cut. It is 


COLORING AND SILVERING. 


85 


not so apt to crack as the cut glass is, besides being 
so much cheaper. You may usually know pressed 
glass by this little seam on each side, left by the 
crease in the moulds • though from some articles it is 
burnished off.” 


IX. 

COLORING AND SILVERING. 

From the cutting-room Lawrence found his way to 
the lamp-room, where he saw a number of girls at 
work cementing the bodies and feet of lamps together, 
and putting on the brass collars. Farther on he 
found men screwing the lamp-tops on, and fitting the 
metallic tops of other ware, such as pepper-boxes, 
“ mustards,” and sirup-pitchers ; thence he went on to 
the mould-room, where the patterns were made and 
the moulds finished after they were brought from the 
foundry. 

He finally inquired his way to the private room of 
the gaffer, whom he found sitting at a work-bench, 
watching what looked like a strip of copper or brass 
doubled up in a transparent bottle half filled with water. 

“ What are you doing to that old hoop ? ” asked 
Lawrence. 

“ That old hoop,” said the gaffer, “ is pure gold, 
enough to buy you a small farm. I am eating it up.” 

“ Eating it up ? ” said Lawrence, laughing. “ I 
don’t see it.” 


86 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


“ Eating it up with that preparation of nitric acid. 
Do you see it work ? ” 

Lawrence did see, to his surprise, that the liquid 
was beginning to bubble about it, like some brisk 
sort of wine, and that the old hoop was gradually 
sinking down into it. 

“It looks,” he said, “ as if the gold was on fire, and 
sending up fine vaporous flames through the liquor. 
But is n’t it a poor use to put gold to ? especially at 
the present premium.” 

“ We use gold in coloring ruby glass ; that is what 
makes ruby glass so expensive. We use old bones, 
or the phosphate of lime, as I told you, to make 
white glass, and the oxides of iron, copper, and silver 
to make other colors. The yellowish tint, with shades 
of green and opal, which you may have seen in 
Bohemian glass, is produced chiefly by uranium.” 

“ What is stained glass, such as we read of in de- 
scriptions of old cathedral windows ? ” 

“ Staining is a kind of painting on glass. The 
colors are a mineral composition ; and they are melted 
into the glass, so that nothing will ever fade them or 
wash them out. Fancy articles of glass are often 
painted in the same way.” 

“ How is this silver glass made ? ” asked Lawrence, 
taking up a door-knob from the bench. “ It looks 
like silver, and it always keeps bright. I have seen 
pitchers and sugar-bowls and lamp-reflectors made 
of it.” 

“ That is a new process, but quite simple. I ’ll tell 


COLORING AND SILVERING. 


87 


you liow we make a reflector, for instance. The glass 
is blown into a large bubble, which is worked flat 
across the top, and saucer-shaped at the bottom. 
Then the blower puts his mouth to the pipe, but, 
instead t>f blowing, he sucks, and draws the top in 
until it almost touches the bottom. Then you have 
something like a broad, shallow dish with a lining. 
Here are half a dozen of them. The hole in the 
bottom part is caused by the cracking off of the pipe 
after it is blown. You see there is a narrow space 
between the bottom part and the lining. Now 1 ’ll 
show you how the silvering is done.” 

The gaffer took a tall measuring-glass, and went 
into another room, where there were some jars of 
transparent liquid on a shelf. 

“This jar,” said he, “contains nitrate of silver”; 
and he poured a small quantity into the glass. Then 
he went to another jar. “ This is a solution of grape 
sugar, — nothing more nor less ” ; and he poured in a 
still larger quantity of that. He then went to a 
third jar. “ This is pure water ” ; and he filled the 
glass with it. 

He then turned the reflectors down on a counter, 
and filled the space between the bottom part and the 
lining of each by pouring the mixed contents of the 
glass in through the hole. When they were full, he 
took them to an oven, and placed them on a pan of 
hot sand. 

« That is all,” said he, shutting the oven. “In half 
an hour I come again and take them, pour out the 


88 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


liquid, and find that the silver in it has completely 
coated the inside of the glass. Pitchers and goblets 
are made in the same way, except that the lining, in- 
stead of being sucked in by the blower, is pushed in 
with a plug. After silvering, the stem and foot of the 
goblet are put on, and the hole in the bottom of the 
pitcher is closed up.” 

“Now I know,” said Lawrence, “how those fancy 
glasses are made that seem to be nearly full of wine, 
but, when you go to drink, it turns out to be only a 
little wine, or some other colored liquid, under the 
lining. You can fool a fellow by making believe you 
are going to throw it in his face. Do you make win- 
dow-glass here ? ” 

“ O no ; blowing window-glass is another business 
entirely.” 


X. 

WINDOW-GLASS AND PLATE-GLASS. 

“ What ! is window-glass blown ? ” 

“ Certainly. What is called English crown glass 
is made in this way. It is first blown into a large 
globe, then flattened and reversed on a ponty. Where 
the glass breaks off from the pipe, a hole is left. That 
side is then made melting hot before the furnace ; it 
is whirled so swiftly that the centrifugal force given 
to it enlarges the hole, gradually at first, then faster 


WINDOW-GLASS AND TLATE-GLASS. 


89 


and faster, then — flap ! that whole side flies open, 
and what was a globe is a disk, or wheel, four or five 
feet in diameter. It is called a table. After anneal- 
ing, it is cut up into panes. 

“ There is another process,” continued the gaffer, 
“ by which our common window-glass is made. By 
the way, if ever you visit Pittsburg, in Pennsylvania, 
you must go into the window-glass factories there; 
you will find them very curious. Their furnace, in 
the first place, is built in the ancient style : it has no 
chimney, and the smoke from the bituminous coal 
they burn pours out in a cloud into the room. There 
are openings in the roof for it to escape through, and 
a continual draught of air from the doors carries it 
upward, so that it is not so bad for the workmen as 
one would think. Besides, they do not begin to blow 
until the smoke is all burnt off. 

“ There are five pots on each side of the furnace ; 
and you will see five men in a row, blowing all at 
once, with the regularity of a file of soldiers exercis- 
ing. Each gathers thirty or forty pounds of metal on 
his pipe, which is very long and strong. They stand 
on platforms, to get room to swing the glass, as they 
blow it. The five men begin to blow and swing all 
together. Each blows a great globe of glass, which 
is stretched out gradually by the swinging motion in- 
to a cylinder, or roller, as it is called, five feet long. 
Then the five rollers are swung up towards the fur- 
nace-holes, and five other soldiers spring forward with 
their guns, — which in this case are iron bars, that 


90 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


they set upright under the five blowing-pipes to sup- 
port them while the rollers are reheating in the 
necks of the pots. The blowers blow in the pipes 
with all their might, then clap their thumbs over the 
holes to prevent the air from rushing out again ; in 
the mean while the end of the roller is softened, so 
that at last the air, forced in and expanded by the 
heat, bursts it outwards. The glass is then a cylinder, 
open at one end. It is whirled in the heat until the 
edges become true, then brought away, — the five iron 
supports dropping to the ground with a simultaneous 
clang. The cylinders are laid on tables, where the 
imperfect spherical end about the blowing-pipe is 
cracked off from the rest by a stripe of melted glass 
drawn around it. The cylinder is then cracked from 
end to end on one side by means of a red-hot iron 
passed through it. 

“ In an adjoining building is what is called the flat- 
tening oven. The cylinders brought there are lifted 
on the end of a lever, passed in through a circular 
opening just large enough to admit them, and laid on 
flattening stones on the oven bottom, with the crack 
uppermost. The oven bottom is circular, and it re- 
volves horizontally. As the glass softens, it separates 
at the crack, and lays itself down gently and gradu- 
ally on the stone. The long cylinder is then a flat 
sheet, three feet wide and nearly five feet in length. 
There are four openings around the sides of the oven ; 
at one the glass is put in, through another a workman 
sweeps the stone for it, a third workman smooths it 


WINDOW-GLASS AND PLATE-GLASS. 


91 


down with a block as it comes round to him, and a 
fourth, at the last opening, which is close to the one 
at which it was put in, lifts the sheet — partly cooled 
by this time — upon a carriage in the oven. This he 
does by means of a lever furnished with sharp, broad 
blades at the end, which he works in under the glass. 
When the carriage is full, it is run through an anneal- 
ing oven beyond. 

“ The opposite end of the annealing oven opens 
into the cutting-room. There the carriages are 
pushed along a central track, and unloaded at the 
stalls of the cutters. The cutter has a table before 
him, with measure-marks on its edges. He lifts one 
of the sheets, lays it on the table, and rules it faster 
than a school-boy rules his slate. His ruler is a 
wooden rod five feet long, and his pencil-point is a 
diamond. Every stroke is a cut. Not that he cuts 
the glass quite apart ; indeed, he seems scarcely to 
make a scratch. Yet that scratch has the effect of 
cracking the glass quite through, so that it breaks 
clean off at the slightest pressure. In this way the 
sheets are cut up into panes of the requisite size.” 

“ I should think the diamonds would wear out,” 
said Lawrence. 

“ I remember,” replied the gaffer, “ one workman 
told me that a single diamond would last him two or 
three years. It has fifteen or sixteen different edges, 
and when one edge is worn out, he uses another. 
South American diamonds, such as he used, cost, he 
told me, from six to thirty dollars each ; and, when 


92 


AMONG THE GLASS- MAKERS. 


they are worn out for his purpose, he sells them for 
jewels to he put into watches.” 

“ What is plate-glass ? ” Lawrence asked. 

“ That is not blown, but cast. The pot, or cistern, 
containing the melted metal, is swung up by a crane 
over an immense polished metallic table, and tipped. 
The table is heated, and there is a rim to keep the 
glass which is poured on from running over the sides. 
The glass is then rolled down to a uniform thickness 
by a heavy copper cylinder, reaching across the table, 
and resting on the rim, which is just as high as the 
plate is to be thick. For bow- windows the plates 
are bent before cutting up into panes. 

“ For mirrors they are silvered in this way : — A 
sheet of tin-foil is spread on a table, and a thin coating 
of mercury is poured over it. Then the glass to be sil- 
vered — sometimes an immense plate, and it has been 
carefully annealed, ground, and polished, of course — 
is slipped on in such a way as to exclude all the air 
from beneath it, the table being tipped just enough to 
let the superfluous mercury run off. When the plate 
is in its place on the table, it is kept for several hours 
under a press of heavy weights. The mercury and 
tin-foil combine to form what is called the amalgam, 
which coats the glass and makes the mirror” 


OTHER CURIOUS MATTERS. 


93 


XI. 

OTHER CURIOUS MATTERS. 

Lawrence said he had read that glass mirrors were 
modern, and that the ancients used polished metal 
instead. “ The Romans for window-panes used sheets 
of mica. Yet glass-making,” said he, “ was a very 
ancient art.” 

“ So ancient,” said the Doctor, coming in just then, 
“ that in Egypt glass ornaments have been discovered 
on mummies that were buried three thousand years 
ago ; and on their monuments are still to he seen 
hieroglyphics, or picture writings, which represent 
glass-blowers at work in the same way, and with the 
same kinds of tools, as modern glass-blowers. The in- 
habitants of Tyre were famous glass-makers, after 
them the Romans, and after them the Venetians. It 
was the Venetians that introduced the art to modem 
Europe.” 

“ The Germans brought it to this country,” said the 
gaffer. “A company of them started a factory at 
Quincy, in Massachusetts, before the Revolution, but 
it did n’t succeed. Mr. Hewes, a Boston merchant, 
next tried it. His glass-blowers were nearly all Hes- 
sians, deserters from the British army. He set up 
his works in the woods of Hew Hampshire, where fuel 
was cheap. But it was n’t till after the beginning of 
the present century that glass-making began to pros- 
per in this country. It has now become a very ex- 


94 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


tensive and very profitable business. New England 
manufactures a good share of the flint-glass which is 
made in America, and which I may say, without 
boasting, is equal to any in the world. Our window- 
glass is made mostly in New Jersey, New York, and 
Pennsylvania. It does n’t pay to manufacture that 
except where fuel is cheap.” 

“ Is n’t it wonderful ? ” said Lawrence, taking up a 
goblet. “ In that piece of glass are white sand, and 
red-lead, and pearlash, and saltpetre, neither of them 
transparent by itself, and yet here they are all trans- 
parent ! It does seem a sort of magic that has made 
them invisible ! ” 

“ There are many wonderful things connected with 
glass,” said the gaffer. u It will not tarnish. Only 
one acid has any effect upon it. It is one of the most 
brittle substances, and yet one of the most elastic. A 
hollow glass ball can be made that will rebound half 
the distance to your hand if you drop it on an anvil.” 

Lawrence said he should like such a ball as that ; 
but when told that it was pretty sure to break at the 
second or third rebound, he said “ Oh ! ” and cheer- 
fully gave it up. 

“ It makes the finest sounding bells,” said the Doc- 
tor, “ and musical glasses are made of it that are 
played by merely rubbing them with the moist fin- 
gers. It will condense moisture from the air more 
quickly than any of the metals.” 

“ There is another curious thing,” said the gaffer. 
“ Drop a ball of melted glass in water, and you ’d think 


OTHER CURIOUS MATTERS. 


95 


it would make a tremendous spluttering ; but it don’t 
at first. After it has had time to cool a little, then it 
sets the water to bubbling.” 

They had now returned to the -gaffer’s room, which 
they found so full of the fumes of the acid that Law- 
rence immediately began to cough. 

“ You see,” said the gaffer, “ the gold has disap- 
peared. The acid has eaten it. Come with me now, 
and I ’ll show you something that happened while 
you were in the cutting-room.” 

Locking the door behind him, he took his visitors 
once more to the cave, which they found full of 
smoke and steam and stifling heat. There he showed 
them the astonishing spectacle of what seemed a clus- 
ter of icicles, some a yard in length, hanging from the 
grate under the big furnace. 

“ One of our melting-pots burst. It was nearly full 
of metal, which ran down into the fire. Some of it 
came through the grate, but the most of it rushed out 
through the teaze-hole in a perfect lava flood, which 
came near setting us on fire.” 

“ That must have been a serious loss,” said Law- 
rence. 

“ Yes. To say nothing of the pot, the glass in it 
was worth about a hundred and fifty dollars.” 

“ Well,” said the Doctor, “ we began with the cave, 
and we may as well end with it.” And, taking leave 
of the gaffer, he departed with his nephew, who, lie 
promised, should come in a few days for the inkstand 
and cups. 


96 


AMONG THE GLASS-MAKERS. 


“ How wonderful it all is ! ” said Lawrence, as they 
stood on the platform, waiting for the train. 

“ It is truly wonderful,” replied the Doctor. “ When 
we consider the many uses to which glass is applied, 
its cheapness, its purity, its beauty, we find that it 
possesses the valuable qualities of nearly all the 
metals ; — incorruptible as gold, clear as silver, useful 
as iron, what would our houses be without it ? It 
keeps the cold out, it lets the light in. We drink 
out of it, and we see ourselves in it. Besides fulfil- 
ling a thousand common and domestic uses, it is made 
into gems that rival the brilliancy of the diamond, 
and into lenses which give new realms to human 
vision. It restores eyesight to the aged, and remedies 
the defective eyesight of the young. It magnifies 
objects invisible to the naked eye, so that they can 
be distinctly seen and studied; and it brings the 
heavens near. To it we owe our intimate acquaint- 
ance with the stars. The telescope is the father of 
modern astronomy, and the soul of the telescope is 
glass.” 


A JOURNEY TO THE COAL REGION. 


07 


CHAPTEE IV. 
AMONG THE C 0 AL-MINEKS. 
L 

A JOURNEY TO THE COAL REGION. 



HAT are you think- 
ing, Lawrence ?” 
said the Doctor, as 
the family were 
seated one evening 
round the library 
fire. 

October had come, 
the nights were 
growing cold, and a 
bright glow from 
the grate gave a 
warm and cheerful 
aspect to the room. 
The Doctor had 
been reading the 
evening paper ; — 
Mrs. Dean was knitting a white worsted tippet, — so 
very white and soft that anybody would have known 
it was intended for Lawrence’s little cousin Ethel, 
for where was there another little throat or chin it 

5 G 


98 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


would become so well ? Ethel was rocking pussy to 
sleep in her doll’s cradle, — only pussy was n’t very 
sleepy, and the sight of the white tippet was a con- 
stant temptation to her playful paws. 

As for Lawrence, he was gazing abstractedly at the 
fire, — scarcely moving, except when, every minute 
or two, he took a lump of coal from the hod, and 
dropped it carefully into the grate, and never once 
speaking, for I don’t know how long, until his uncle 
startled him with his sudden question. 

“ Oh ! I ? I was thinking how curious it is. I 
mean the fire. And the coal that makes the fire, — 
where it comes from, and how we happen to be burn- 
ing it here. Ever since we saw the great furnaces at 
the glass-works, I can’t keep it out of my head.” 

“No !” cried little Ethel; “he won’t even look at 
my kitty, — and she is so interesting in her nightcap 
and nightgown ! Only see how quiet she is ! There ! 
rock-a-by, baby, upon the tree-top ! When the wind 
blows, the cradle will — Dear me, kitty ! ” she ex- 
claimed ; for there was just then an exciting move- 
ment of the white tippet, and away went kitty, 
nightcap, nightgown, and all, to have a snatch at it. 

There was a good laugh at the funny appearance 
pussy made, dressed up so, with the nightcap-strings 
tied under her whiskers, and her paws in sleeves. 
And Mrs. Dean said, “ You see, Ethel, cats will be 
cats, and boys will be boys. You mustn’t blame 
them because they won’t do always just as you would 
like to have them. Lawrence is a good deal more 


A JOURNEY TO THE COAL REGION. 


99 


interested in coal, just now, than he is in cats with 
nightcaps.” 

“ For a while it was all glass,” said Ethel, putting 
pussy back into the cradle. “ There was n’t a glass 
thing in the house that he did n’t talk about, and tell 
us how it was made.” 

“ Yes, and did n’t you like to have me ? ” said 
Lawrence. “You made me tell you over and over 
again how your little ruby cup was made.” 

“ Yes, indeed ; for that is very pretty, with my 
initials engraved on it, and the little flower-wreath 
around them to match yours. But coal, — ugly black 
coal ! — I don’t see what there is interesting in that ! ” 

“ Lawrence does, and I am very glad of it,” said 
the Doctor. “ How would you like to see where the 
coal comes from, — eh, Lawrence ? ” 

“ That ’s what I ’ve been wishing for ! ” exclaimed 
the boy. “ If I could only go into a coal-mine !” 

The good Doctor smiled. “ Well, now, I ’ll tell 
you what I have been thinking. Some gentlemen of 
my acquaintance talk of purchasing coal lands in 
Pennsylvania ; and they have their eye on some near 
Scranton, in Luzerne County, — which you will find, 
when you turn to your map, about the centre of the 
northeastern quarter of the State. They have asked 
me to go out and look at this property for them, and 
I think of starting next week. Would you like to 
go with me ? ” 

Lawrence fairly leaped out of his chair with de- 
light “ Would I ? 0 uncle ! ” 


100 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


" There she goes again ! ” said Ethel, with a rueful 
face, holding pussy’s nightgown in her hand, having 
pulled it off in a vain attempt to detain the runaway. 
“ Why could n’t you keep still, coz, when she was 
just getting so quiet ? ” 

“ Why, I ’m going to Pennsylvania ! ” cried Law- 
rence, — as if that were excuse enough for the wildest 
conduct. 

“Yes, but you needn’t dance up and down that 
way, if you are ! Now she won’t go to sleep to- 
night ! ” 

“ Neither will Lawrence, I ’m afraid,” said his aunt. 
“ He should n’t have been told of anything so exciting 
until morning.” 

The Doctor laughed, and said, “ I knew he would 
have to lie awake one night, thinking of it, and that 
may as well be to-night.” 

Lawrence seemed to be of the same opinion. He 
went to bed as usual ; but he did n’t want to sleep. 
He lay awake, thinking of the promised journey, and 
of coal mines and miners, for an hour or two. He was 
so excited, that when he fell asleep at last he dreamed 
that he was a locomotive in nightcap and nightgown, 
and that, taking fright at the sound of a gun, he ran 
off the track, and smashed up a long passenger train. 
Then it seemed to him that the noise he had taken 
for a gun was in fact the explosion of his own boiler ; 
then, that he was the engineer, and that he was 
knocked very high by repeated explosions, which 
wouldn’t let him come down out of the freezing 


A JOURNEY TO THE COAL REGION. 


101 


weather. He awoke, in the midst of his trouble, to 
find that he had thrown off the bedclothes, that he 
was shivering with the cold, and that a window-blind 
was slamming. 


The days seemed very long to the boy, until at last 
the time came for bidding his aunt and cousin good 
by, and starting with his uncle on their journey. 

They took the steamboat train for New York ; and 
Lawrence, after sleeping soundly “ as a top,” as he 
said, “ on that pantry-shelf,” — meaning the berth in 
the state-room, — awoke the next morning in the 
great city. 

He had a few hours to look about him, while his 
uncle transacted some business ; then they crossed 
the river in a ferry-boat, (how keenly the boy enjoyed 
all that ! ) and, taking a train on the other side, rattled 
away, across New Jersey, and far up into Pennsyl- 
vania, reaching Scranton the same evening. 

It was, of course, a delightful journey to the boy, 
and he was almost sorry when it came to an end. Yet 
the end was the most interesting part of it. The 
train went winding in among the mountains that 
enclose the Lackawanna Valley; they were covered 
with wild forests, still bright with the glorious tints 
of October ; and, through a deep ravine that divided 
them, a beautiful stream — rightly named “ Roaring 
Brook ” — came rushing down. On the other side 
from this, — that is, on the right, — Little Roaring 
Brook came leaping from the rocks in white cascades. 


102 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


and, disappearing for a moment under the railroad 
bridge, fell into the larger stream below. Then Law- 
rence had exciting glimpses of steaming colliery 
buildings, with their black mounds — almost moun- 
tains — of waste coal and slate from the mines, push- 
ing out into the narrow valley. Then the train passed 
within sight of immense iron mills and blast furnaces 
flashing and flaming in the early twilight ; then it 
came to a stop ; and an omnibus whirled them away 
to a hotel in the city. 

It was too late to see much of Scranton that night ; 
but Lawrence consoled himself with anticipations of 
pleasure in going about with his uncle the next morn- 
ing. He was, however, destined to be disappointed. 

A tall gentleman, in gray overcoat and gray whisk- 
ers, whom he left talking with his uncle in the 
reading-room, was still at the hotel the next morning. 
After breakfast, a buggy came to the door of the hotel, 
— for himself and his uncle, Lawrence supposed ; 
but no, it was for the tall gentleman ; and the Doctor 
was going to ride with him. 

“ I Ve an engagement with this man,” said the Doc- 
tor, taking his nephew aside ; “ and I see his buggy 
lias seats for only two. But you won’t mind being 
left alone for a few hours.” 

“ 0, certainly not,” said Lawrence, with as cheerful 
a face as he could assume, though with a swelling 
heart. And his uncle rode away. 

He watched the buggy as it disappeared up the 
long street ; then a strange feeling of desolation came 


A JOURNEY TO THE COAL REGION. 


103 


over him. The town was full of things worth seeing, 
hut how could he, an utter stranger, hope to find them 
out ? If he could only have gone in the buggy ! 

It was not his way, however, to spend much time 
in lamenting things that could not be helped. The 
morning was fine. The sunlight was beautiful on the 
mountains. “ There ’s no use feeling bad,” thought he. 
“ I ’m lucky to be here, any way. I can see the river 
and the city, if nothing else.” 

So he went out, in good spirits, and spent the fore- 
noon very happily. Yet he was n’t quite satisfied 
with himself when he returned to the hotel at dinner- 
time. He had seen and enjoyed many things, but not 
what he most wished to see, — the interior of a coal- 
mine. He had stood in silent wonder before more 
than one great colliery building, and heard the thun- 
dering crash of the coal dumped into the breakers ; 
he had even looked into one, and seen the loaded cars 
from the deep mines whirled up swiftly, by the 
powerful engines, out of the black pit, and whirled 
back again empty, with terrible rapidity, and he had 
asked himself if he would ever have the courage to 
go down in one of them. He thought he would, if 
any one familiar with the mines would go with him ; 
but everybody he saw appeared too busy to give a lad 
like him the least attention. “ I must make acquaint- 
ances,” thought he ; and he determined to begin at 
the dinner-table, — his uncle not having returned. 

At dinner, however, he was quite disheartened by 
what he saw. Sixteen young men sat at the same 


104 


AMONG THE COAL- MINERS. 


table with himself, and scarcely sixteen words were 
spoken by all of them during the solemn ceremony of 
eating. They were all good-looking, and had clean 
dickies, and white foreheads, and appeared so intel- 
ligent, and so much at their ease, that their unsocial 
behavior quite astonished him. Indeed, it overcame 
him so, that he would no more have ventured to 
break the awful silence by speaking loud than if he 
had been sitting in his uncle’s church-pew during 
sermon-time. 

/ 

II. 

MR. CLARENCE AND HIS DOG MUFF. 

While he was wondering what they could all be 
thinking about, another young man entered, — a very 
young man, I may say, for his age could scarcely 
have exceeded that of Lawrence himself, although 
his surprisingly cool and self-possessed manners 
made him appear much older. He had a pleasant 
face, a jaunty short jacket, and large side-pockets. 
In these he carried his hands, and, in one of them, 
the end of a cane, which stuck up behind him at 
about the angle of a plough-handle. He looked 
around with a knowing expression, and finally, 
seeming, after mature thought on the subject, to have 
selected Lawrence as a table-companion, went and sat 
down opposite him. 

“ Here, Muff!” said he ; and Lawrence noticed that 
he was followed by a very small dog, in a very large 


MR. CLARENCE AND HIS DOG MUFF. 


105 


fleece of white curls, that made him look as if Nature 
had at first designed him for a dog, but had afterwards 
changed her mind, and finished him up as a sheep. 

The young man took the cane from his pocket, 
held it up directly over the animal’s upturned nose, 
and dropped it. Click ! — the animal’s jaws flew 
open like a trap, and caught it. 

“ Turn three times ! ” said the young man. 

The animal immediately got up on his hind legs, 
with his head thrown back, balancing the stick, and 
began to revolve, like a capstan with a lever thrust 
through it. 

“ Go ! ” said the young man ; and the dog, dropping 
down on all fours, still holding the cane, retired with 
it to the door of the dining-room, where he laid it 
down under the hat-table, and put his paws on it, and 
kept vigilant guard over it, against all comers. The 
tall head-waiter made one or two attempts to turn 
him out, but got growled and snapped at so smartly 
that he finally let him remain. 

Everybody appeared to be amused by this trifling 
incident, especially some children at a table near by, 
who could not laugh enough to see the tall waiter 
retreat from such a tangled little ball of wool. Even 
the solemn young men relaxed their grave counte- 
nances, and from that moment became sociable. 

Meanwhile, the dog’s youthful master, not appear- 
ing in the least aware that either he or his pet had 
done anything extraordinary, glanced over the bill of 
fare, with the air of a person making judicious selec- 
5* 


106 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


tions. Then he gave his order, calling the young lady 
who waited on him “ Sis,” and talking to her very 
much as if he had been an old friend of her father’s 
and held her on his knee when she was little. Then, 
resting his arms on the table, he looked across it at 
Lawrence, and gave a short nod. 

Lawrence gave a short nod in return. 

“ Fine day,” said the young fellow. 

“ Beautiful,” replied Lawrence, adding, “ That ’s a 
splendid pup of yours,” — though he knew that 
splendid was n’t just the word. 

“ He ’ll do,” said the young fellow, with a glance 
at the door. “ ‘ No dogs allowed in the dining-hall/ 
says the chap in the white apron, as I came in. c Is 
that the rule of this hotel ? ’ says I. ‘ Yes, sir,’ says 
he. ‘ And a very good rule it is/ says I ; ‘ but it 
don’t say anything about sheep ’ ; and, while we were 
talking, Muff and I walked in. I ’d like to see the 
place where Muff and I can’t go ! — Thank you, sis,” 
to the young lady bringing his dinner. — “ Acquaint- 
ed in Scranton ? ” 

Lawrence said no, — he arrived in town only the 
evening before with his uncle. 

“ Indeed ! I came with my uncle, Mr. Fitz Adam, 
the celebrated mining engineer. You ’ve heard of 
him, of course ? ” 

Lawrence was forced to own that he had not heard 
of the celebrated Mr. Fitz Adam. Thereupon the 
young fellow laid down his knife and fork, and looked 
at him over his plate with mild astonishment, making 


MR. CLARENCE AND HIS DOG MUFF. 107 

Lawrence painfully aware how much he had lowered 
himself in his (the young fellow’s) esteem by that 
confession. 

“ May I ask where you came from, sir ? ” he said, 
— as if that must be a curious country, indeed, where 
the inhabitants had never heard of his uncle. 

Lawrence hardly knew at first what to make of 
this impertinence, but wisely concluded to make a 
joke of it. 

“ I am from Massachusetts,” said he, with a droll 
smile just puckering the corners of his mouth. “ And 
my uncle is the distinguished Doctor Dean. You 
have heard of him, of course ? ” 

The young fellow laughed, and nodded at Lawrence 
approvingly ; and Lawrence felt that this reply had 
raised him again in the young gentleman’s esteem. 
“ We are even on that. — Butter, if you please, sis. 
Thank you, sis. And see here, sis ! — can’t you get 
me a piping-hot sweet potato ? I ’ll remember you 
in my will, if you’ll be so kind as to oblige me.” 
Then, turning again to Lawrence: “We’re bound to 
speak well of our uncles, I see, though mine served 
me a remarkably shabby trick this morning.” 

“ How so ? ” 

“He left me asleep in my bed, and, as near as I 
can find out, went off to ride with another gentle- 
man.” 

“ Exactly what my uncle did by me ! ” said Law- 
rence, “ only I was n’t asleep in bed. Is your uncle 
a tall man in gray overcoat and gray whiskers ? ” 


108 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


“ The very same ! You don’t say he and your 
uncle — well ! this is a coincidence ! Your hand on 
it ! ” And the young fellow stretched his arm across 
the table. “My name,” said he, “ is Mr. Clarence Fitz 
Adam.” 

“ Mine is Lawrence Livingstone.” And from that 
moment they were friends. 

“ I wish you had been with me this morning,” said 
Mr. Clarence, wiping his elbow, — for he had dipped 
it into the gravy when they shook hands. “ I have 
seen Scranton outside, inside, and ” — he pointed 
downward, mysteriously — “ underside.” 

“ Not in the coal-mines ? ” said Lawrence, with a 
pang of envy. “ I wanted to go down in a shaft, but 
did n’t know how the thing was to b6 done.” 

“ You ain’t bashful, I hope ? You ’ll find bashful- 
ness don’t pay, if you are going through the world,” 
said Mr. Clarence, with an air of old experience. 
“ The world ’s a big shop. ‘ No admittance/ says the 
chap at the door. ‘ 0, excuse me ! ’ you say, and 
back out. But what do I say ? ‘ No admittance ? 
Certainly, that ’s all right, — an excellent regulation ; 
but, if you please, sir/ — then I go on and ask ques- 
tions, and the first thing he knows, he is showing me 
round. Come, I ’ll get my pup fed, then we 11 take a 
stroll together.” 


SCRANTON AND COAL. 


109 


III. 

SCRANTON AND COAL. 

Lawrence was well pleased, for he was certain Mr. 
Clarence must be a capital fellow to go about with. 

They walked down the street arm in arm, and 
crossed the river on the railroad bridge. 

“This is the famous Lackawanna, as I suppose you 
have learned,” said Mr. Clarence, pointing downwards 
at the hurrying water. “ It is the stream that gives 
its name to all this coal region about Scranton. This 
side of the river,” he continued, when they had 
crossed, “ is Hyde Park. It is the fifth ward of the 
city. Let ’s climb the bank above the railroad, and 
get a view. These,” said he, turning, when they had 
reached a favorable point, — “ these plain-looking little 
houses right before us here are miners’ houses.” 

“ I don’t see but that they look very much like the 
houses of any other class of laborers,” said Lawrence ; 
“ and I had imagined, somehow, they must be differ- 
ent, — little, low, black, dismal, mysterious huts, to 
correspond with the miners’ dismal occupation, you 
know.” 

“ They may be so in some countries. But in this 
favored land of liberty,” said Mr. Clarence, smiling 
at his own eloquence, “ the miners are so well paid, 
that they can afford to live very comfortably, as you 
see. 

“ Well,” he went on, pointing with his cane, “ there 


110 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 



MINERS’ HOUSES, AND VIEW OF SCRANTON. 


are the banks of the Lackawanna, and the railroad 
bridge we came over. We are here on the west bank ; 
and there is the main part of the city on the east or 
left bank. This is all Scranton, — a fine, large city, 
as you see. But it has all been built up within a 
few years. A few years ago, this country was all a 
wilderness. I)o you know what has made the differ- 


SCRANTON AND COAL. 


Ill 


ence ? Coal, anthracite coal,” Mr. Clarence continued, 
answering his own question. “ Coal built those fine 
brick blocks, those churches, hotels, stores. Coal built 
those big blast furnaces and iron mills. Coal built 
the railroads you and I came in on yesterday. Coal 
has done all this, and more,” — adding, by way of 
climax, “ it has brought me the pleasure of your 
acquaintance.” 

“ This is a funny-looking brick church, up on the 
hill behind us,” said Lawrence, “ with the end cracked 
open, and the sides held up with props.” 

“Yes. And just beyond it you’ll see a house 
tipped up on one end, great pits in the earth, and 
other irregularities. Can you guess how they came 
about ? Coal is to blame here too. There are mines 
all under where we stand. They extend like so many 
streets beneath the streets of the town, — two or 
three hundred feet below, of course. In place of 
houses and blocks down there, as you ’ll see, for we 
are going into a mine presently, they have what 
they call pillars, — pillars of coal, — which they leave 
to support the country above, when they are under- 
mining it. That is a very important consideration, 
where a city stands. But it seems they did n’t leave 
quite support enough under this part ; for one day 
the ground began to shake and tremble ; and it shook 
and trembled every little while, all that day and 
night, and all the next day, and the great pillars down 
there groaned and complained ; and now and then the 
coal would fly off from them, as if it was angry, and 


112 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


the props — for they put wooden props under the roof 
besides — broke like pipe-stems ; and finally, the 
next night, the crash came. The pillars had finally 
given way, and the country had settled. It looks 
now as if a young earthquake had kicked it.” 

“ Who pays the damages under such circumstan- 
ces ? ” 

“ I believe that question has n’t been decided yet. 
The owner of the land sells house-lots, reserving the 
right to mine the coal under them. He sells the right 
to the coal companies. Coal companies take out too 
much coal, — crash, — down go the house-lots, with 
the houses on them. Who is to blame ? You see, it 
is a delicate legal point,” added Mr. Clarence, in his 
fine way. “ And now, what do you say to going down 
and taking a look at that underground country ? ” 

“ I should be delighted to ! ” said Lawrence. 

“ Well, come along, I ’ve been here before, you see. 
Come, Muff!” 

On their way they passed a little white box of a 
house, which Mr. Clarence said was the superintend- 
ent’s office, and proposed that they should look in. 

The interior consisted of one room, divided by a 
counter, on one side of which sat a young man read- 
ing a newspaper. Lawrence and Mr. Clarence, with 
the little dog Muff, advanced from the other side. 

“ Here,” said Mr. Clarence, “ is where the miners 
walk up and get their pay.” He rapped on the coun- 
ter with his cane. “ How are you, Mr Superintend- 
ent ?” 


SCRANTON AND COAL. 


113 


The young man looked up pleasantly enough ; and 
Mr. Clarence proceeded to introduce himself and his 
companion, with liberal allusions to their distinguished 
uncles, which made the more modest Lawrence grin 
and blush. 

“We shall take it as a favor if you will grant 
us facilities for visiting the mines/’ said the fluent- 
tongued Mr. Clarence. 

“ It won’t be safe for you to go into the mines with- 
out a guide, and I have no person to send with you,” 
replied the superintendent, politely, but decidedly. 

Upon which Lawrence was for retiring at once. 
But Mr. Clarence said, leaning upon the counter very 
much at his ease, “Of course ; I understand all about 
that ; and we have no wish to take up your valuable 
time. Thank you, — very kind, I am sure,” — though 
Lawrence could n’t see how the superintendent had 
shown himself so very kind, or why they should thank 
him. “ Perhaps, however,” said Mr. Clarence, “ as my 
friend here is interested in the coal formation, you 
might show us some specimens without much trouble 
to yourself.” 

“ 0, certainly.” The superintendent laid aside his 
newspaper, and got up from his chair. “ Here is 
something quite pretty,” said he, opening a drawer 
and placing on the counter a piece of slate-rock, bear- 
ing a beautiful impression of a fern-leaf. Lawrence’s 
enthusiasm over it seemed to please him ; and he 
continued to lay out his treasures, until he came to 
one which he pronounced “ very remarkable.” 


114 AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 

This was a broad, thin slab of slate, which proved 
to be a perfect cast of a portion of the leaves of a 
strange tree, which must have been two or three feet 
in diameter, at least. All the minute seams in the 
bark, together with little bud-like spots occurring at 
regular intervals between parallel lines half an inch 
apart, were stamped with wonderful delicacy and dis- 
tinctness in the slaty mould. 

“ How — where did these come from ? ” cried Law- 
rence, examining the specimens with astonishment 
and admiration. 

“ The coal, you know,” said the voluble Mr. Clar- 
ence, “ is supposed to be the result of immense, rank 
growths of fern-trees, and other plants, which ab- 
sorbed the surplus carbon of the atmosphere during 
the carboniferous period. Carbon, you know, is the 
principal thing in coal, — the French say chctrbon, 
which means both carbon and coal, — and the carbon- 
iferous era is that in which our coal deposits were 
made. That was nobody knows how many thousands 
of years ago, — millions, it may be ; and the trunks 
and leaves that made these impressions in the stones 
you are handling grew and decayed long before ever 
man appeared on the globe.” 

Lawrence knew as much as that before ; but now, 
with the impressions before his eyes, distinct as if 
they had been taken but yesterday, the fact came 
home to his mind with startling force. 

“ Those forests,” continued Mr. Clarence, “ must 
have grown mostly in the water, and have sunk down 


SCRANTON AND COAL. 


115 


in great beds of fallen trunks and matted leaves, and 
there decayed ; and occasionally layers of mud or 
clay must have washed in over them ; and now and 
then, at longer intervals, — the ground sinking, I sup- 
pose, — great beds of sand and pebbles washed in. 
The vegetable matters changed to coal, while the mud 
hardened into slate, and the sand and pebbles into 
rocks. The mud would often take impressions of 
the leaves and bark, and retain them, as it hard- 
ened, even after the leaves and bark themselves had 
changed to coal.” 

“ See what you make of these,” said the superin- 
tendent, smiling, as he handed out more specimens. 

“ These are fossil roots,” said Mr. Clarence. “ You 
find them generally in the fire clay under the coal 
veins ; don’t you ? Ah, this,” he said, seizing a beau- 
tiful slender, jointed stem of stone, — “ this is a fossil 
reed ! Something like it grows in Mexico, at this day.” 

“ I believe you are right,” said the superintendent. 
“ That was fifteen feet long, when we first found it. 
But it has been broken, and I have given away 
pieces of it.” 

“ Oh ! if I could only have a piece ! ” exclaimed 
Lawrence. 

“ I ’ll give you a piece,” said the superintendent, 
and picked out from the pile a small fragment of the 
reed, which had been previously broken off. Then, 
seeing how delighted the boy was, he selected a piece 
of slate that had a fine imprint of a leaf on it, and 
gave it to him. 


116 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 



Lawrence, having secured these treasures, threw 
longing glances at the large cast already described. 
But of course the superintendent could not be ex- 
pected to break that, for anybody. So Lawrence 
asked for a piece of paper, thinking he might take an 
impression from it. 

“ Now,” said he, laying the paper on the cast, “ if I 
only had a piece of lead to rub on it,” — for he re- 
membered that he had often, in this way, taken quite 
accurate impressions of cents and medals, when at 
school. “ Have you a bullet ? ” 

“ None outside of me,” said the superintendent ; 
who went on to explain that he had one in him, re- 
ceived from a rebel musket. 

“ You were in the army, then ? ” said Mr. Clar- 
ence. 

“Yes, with a company of our miners. We left 
coal, and went into business under the rebel fortifica- 
tions. Our men helped make the famous mine we 
exploded before Petersburg. It was there I got my 
bullet." 


THE BREAKER. 


117 


As the said bullet was not available for artistic 
purposes, Lawrence tried a lead pencil, and succeeded 
in getting a fair impression of the curious bark pat- 
tern. 


IV. 

THE BREAKER. 

“ Would you like to look at the breaker ? ” then 
said the superintendent. 

To which Lawrence replied, “ O, very much ! ” while 
Mr. Clarence kicked his shin, and whispered, “ That ’s 
the way to do it ; I knew he would come round.” 

So they all walked out towards the great colliery 
building near by. It covered the steep slope of the 
hillside, and looked, Lawrence said, as if it might 
have been built as a coop for some long-necked, enor- 
mous bird. 

“ So it does,” said the superintendent. “ The high- 
est part, which you fancy was meant to accommodate 
the goose’s long neck and head, is what we call the 
tower. It is directly over the shaft. The wing cov- 
ers, sloping away down to the railroad, are over the 
shoots.” 

“ Spelled chutes” remarked Mr. Clarence, twisting 
his cane. “ That is the French for falls. Did n’t you 
ever hear a Frenchman speak of la chute de Niagara ? 
You won’t see a chute de Niagara here, but you ’ll see 
chutes de anthracite coal. Though in this case it is n’t 


118 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


tlie cataracts they call the chutes , but the wooden 
spouts they run down.” 

The superintendent took them first into the engine- 
room, on the upper side of the building, close by the 
shaft. There they saw several beautiful engines at 
work with so little noise that they could scarcely be 
heard amid the thundering roar of the cataract of coal 
launched in the tower overhead. 

“ This engine is for pumping the water out of the 
mines,” said the superintendent. “ The one yonder 
works the ventilating fan, that blows out the impure 
air and smoke and fire-damp, and makes it possible 
for men to live so far down in the earth. Here is 
the breaker engine, that crushes the coal.” Lastly, 
he showed a strong pair of engines employed in lifting 
the coal in the shaft. 

“ You don’t have to go far for the fuel you burn,” 
said Lawrence, as they went on into the boiler-room. 

“ Show him,” said the superintendent to a stout 
fireman, who threw open the iron doors beneath the 
boilers, and exposed to view a glowing and flaming 
bed of the very finest kind of coal, “ no bigger than 
peas,” Lawrence said. 

“ We call it pea-coal,” replied the superintendent. 
“It is too fine to ship, and we used to throw it away 
with the coal-dust. But since coal has been so high, 
we have tried burning it here, and find that it does 
very well.” 

Returning through the engine-room, they entered 
the tower, and stopped at the head of the shaft. This 


THE BREAKER. 


119 


had for Lawrence a terrible fascination. Every three 
quarters of a minute — as Mr. Clarence, who looked 
at his watch, informed them — up came out of its 
black depths, with fearful rapidity, a car-load of coal, 
shooting past them, and disappearing with a deafening 
crash in the top of the tower, high above their heads. 

The shaft was double, and two sets of cars were 
ascending and descending, with a parting of timber 
between them. The car was supported on a strong 
framework, called a carriage, which was lifted and 
lowered by a long rope and a steam-engine. 

“ What if the rope should break ? ” said Lawrence, 
imagining the frightful consequences of such a disaster. 

“ Don’t you see ? ” said Mr. Clarence, pointing with 
his cane ; “ the carriage runs in the grooves of these 
upright timbers. They are called guides. You see 
the notches in them. Well, if the rope breaks, there 
are dogs — as we call them — in the sides of the car- 
riage, and they fall into the notches, and hold it.” 

“ I see you know something about coal,” remarked 
the superintendent. 

“ I ought to,” replied Mr. Clarence. “ I intend to 
follow my uncle’s profession ” ; and he took occasion 
once more to extol that celebrated mining engineer. 
"It is one of the noblest professions in the world. 
Civil engineering is nothing to it. A civil engineer, 
laying out a railroad, or anything of the sort, works 
where he can see ; but a mining engineer has to work 
like a mole in the dark. He must know all about the 
coal-beds, how they lie, and the easiest and most 


120 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


economical way of getting at them, and all that. Now 
^hen you consider that the coal-beds in these anthra- 
cite regions lie in all sorts of ways, — as if the 
country, after they were formed, had been tossed up 
like the waves of a sea by the action of heat, I sup- 
pose ; so that here you find them nearly level, in a 
sort of basin, and there turned up edgeways, and 
in another place, perhaps, regularly rolled over and 
folded together, like that,” — he traced out with his 
cane, on the floor, the various undulations and curves 
in the coal strata, very much as if he had been writ- 
ing a hard word ; " when you consider all that, and 
reflect that sometimes these beds crop out at the sur- 
face, and sometimes dive hundreds of feet into the 
earth, — you ’ll conclude that a mining engineer, who 
knows his business, knows something.” 

“ There are plenty who pretend to know their 
business who don’t know the first thing about it,” 
said the superintendent. 

“ Yes, and they ‘often come and get my uncle to go 
and engineer for them,” said Mr. Clarence. “ ‘ But 
you are an engineer, yourself,’ says my uncle. * Yes, 
but my eyes trouble me, — I can’t see very well,’ says 
the fellow. So my uncle goes and gives him a start, 
and makes figures and plans for him to work after. 
0,” laughed Mr. Clarence, “ lots of those fellows have 
poor eyes, when anything requiring real skill is to be 
done ; though they pass for engineers and draw big 
salaries. They know just enough to open a drift, or 
a slope, when it has been laid out for them.” 


THE BREAKER. 


121 


" What is a drift , or a slope 1 ” Lawrence asked. 

“ Why, you see, there are different ways of opening 
a coal-mine. One is by a shaft , like this, when the 
beds lie deep, and in a sort of basin. We go straight 
down to the bottom of the lowest bed we are going 
to work, and pump out the water and draw up the 
coal by steam. The drift is a gangway from the 
bottom of the shaft, or a straight opening into a 
nearly level coal-bed, where it crops out on some 
hillside ; and there the engineer must be pretty sharp, 
in order to make his opening so that the mine will 
drain itself, and the coal can be drawn out by mules. 
The slope is an opening that goes down slantingly in- 
to a vein ; in it a track is laid, and regular wheel-cars 
are let down and drawn up by a steam-engine.” 

Lawrence wished to know more about the shaft 
before them ; and the superintendent explained that 
it was a perpendicular opening, twenty-two feet long, 
twelve broad, and two hundred and fifty feet deep. 
It had been sunk by drilling and blasting through 
the solid strata of rock that covered and separated 
the coal-beds. It was divided, by partitions of plank 
and timber, into what seemed three separate shafts, 
— two for the coal-carriages, and a third for the air 
column and water-pump, which ventilated and drained 
the mines. 

“ But what is the use of a high tower ? ” said Law- 
rence, his eyes following a coal-car as it shot up amid 
the strong timbers and braces above his head. 

“To get room to break, screen, and separate the 
6 


122 


AMONG TIIE COAL-MINERS. 


coal,” said the superintendent. “ Come up stairs, and 
you will see.” 

The tower was fifty feet high above the mouth of 
the shaft ; and it would have had to be built still 
higher, Mr. Clarence observed, had not the slope of 
the hill made room for the bins below. They went 
up by narrow wooden staircases, through the “ screen- 
room ” and “ plate-room ” (which the superintendent 
said they should see again as they came down), 
amidst clouds of coal-dust, and blackened beams and 
braces, to the summit of the black-raftered and high- 
windowed tower. Mr. Clarence came last, having 
stopped to set Muff to guarding his cane in the 
engine-room, in order to prevent that white sheep 
of a dog from becoming a black one. 

“ Here you ’ll see what makes the noise,” said the 
superintendent. 

As he spoke, up came a coal-car, and stopped before 
their eyes. It was loaded, as Lawrence now had a 
chance to see, with huge lumps or fragments, some of 
immense size and weight. It seemed endowed with 
intelligence of its own, for the moment it arrived in 
the right place it threw out its own end-board, and 
immediately tipped up, casting its contents into an 
opening through the floor, called a “ dump.” Some 
of the great lumps tumbled over the sides of the 
opening, and made Lawrence jump to take care of his 
toes. 

An attendant (“ That ’s the ticket-boss,” said Mr. 
Clarence), begrimed from head to foot with coal-dust, 


THE BREAKER. 


123 


wow stepped forward, tumbled the scattered lumps 
into the dump, took something from a little book in 
the car, pulled a hell as a signal to the engineer, and 
closed up the end-hoard as the empty car fell hack 
into its place on the carriage. The car now dropped 
swiftly down into the shaft again; while the man, 
glancing at the little thing he had taken out of it, 
proceeded to put it away in a box of pigeon-holes. 

“ That ’s the ticket,” said Mr. Clarence. “ You 
did n’t know they had to have tickets on these cars, 
did you ? ” 

Lawrence looked puzzled, and the superintendent 
explained. “ This little piece of brass ” — he took the 
ticket from its pigeon-hole — “has a number on it. It 
is number thirty-seven. That is the number of the 
chamber or breast in which that load of coal was mined. 
There is one miner in each chamber ; he has his 
package of tickets, and he puts one in every car he 
sends out. The tickets are collected by the ticket- 
boss here, and all the thirty-sevens are put into 
pigeon-hole thirty-seven. So with the other tickets. 
Then, at night, the tickets in each pigeon-hole show 
just how many loads of coal are to be credited to each 
miner.” 

“ How many, on an average, will there be ? ” 

“ Seven is the rule ; and each car-load must be a 
ton and a half.” 

“ Do you weigh it ? ” 

“ Ho. The ticket-boss can tell by his eye if it is 
full weight. If it is n’t, he docks the miner for the 


124 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


deficiency. Or he docks him if there is too much 
slate in his coal.” 

“ Seven car-loads, — a ton and a half to the load, 
— ten and a half tons,” said Lawrence. “ Does one 
miner get out all that, in a day ? ” 

“ You must know there are two distinct classes of 
laborers in the mines,” said the superintendent. 
“Each miner has possession of a chamber and we 
deal only with him. He finds his own tools, powder, 
oil, everything ; and hires a common laborer to help 
him. The laborer knows not much more about 
mining than you do, and he is not called a miner, 
though he works in the mines. He loads the coal, 
and helps the miner in many ways. These two get 
out their seven loads, — or more, if they choose ; and 
we pay the miner ninety-seven cents a load.” 

“ Six dollars and seventy-nine cents a day ! ” said 
Lawrence, who was quick at figures. “ That ’s good 
wages.” 

“So it is, even after the miner has paid his ex- 
penses out of it. His powder costs him a dollar a day. 
He pays his laborer now, I believe, two dollars and 
ten cents a day. He has nearly three dollars and a 
half left for himself, even if he gets out only seven 
loads. But some miners get out eight or nine loads a 
day ; and, after making due allowance for stoppages, 
on account of accidents, or a dull market, earn their 
thousand or twelve hundred dollars a year. You will 
notice that those who confine themselves to their 
seven loads will go home this afternoon at three or 
four o’clock.” 


THE BREAKER. 125 

“ What sort of people are they ? ” Lawrence wished 
to know. 

“ They are all Welsh, in these mines. And a re- 
spectable, thrifty class they are, generally. They have 
their church-meetings, and their Sunday school, and 
week-day school for their children, like any other 
class. A few of them are dissipated and shiftless, and 
spend all they earn. But the most of them are sober 
and industrious, and provide well for their families. 
Some have laid up handsome little fortunes, all earned 
in the mines” 

“They are a much better class than the miners 
down in the Schuylkill district,” said Mr. Clarence. 
“ There we have all sorts, but mostly Irish of the 
worst kind. Every once in a while some of them will 
get up a strike. The strikers go round to all the 
mines, and force everybody to stop work until every- 
body gets an increase of wages. If they don’t like a 
boss, they give him warning to quit, and if he don’t 
quit they kill him. Biots are quite common, and the 
governor has had to call out the militia to put them 
down.” ^ 

“ How many miners are at work in this mine ? ” 
Lawrence asked. “ And how many men, besides ? ” 

“We have forty-eight chambers running now ; that 
makes forty-eight miners,” said the superintendent. 
“ These, with their laborers, and a small army of men 
and boys employed in various other ways, — mule 
drivers, slate-pickers, and so forth, — make a force of 
over three hundred.” 


126 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


All the while they were talking the loads of coal 
kept thundering into the dump. They now descended 
into the room below, to see what next became of it. 
There it was received on a set of strong, slanting iron 
plates, forming a sort of spout from the dump above 
to the breaker below, and so arranged as to let the 
small pieces of coal drop through between them, as 
the cataract poured down. The big lumps rushed on 
to the breaker, guided by four stout Irishmen, armed 
with strong iron rakes. There was something terrible 
in the way the great lumps and blocks of anthracite 
came crashing and bounding down these plates ; and 
Lawrence observed that the men had to work hard to 
take care of them. 

“ Yes,” one said ; “ the coal bosses us. If we had 
a boss that drove us half as hard, we’d be kickin’ 
him out.” And he grinned through his grime of coal- 
dust. 

The breaker looked like a great coffee-mill; and 
the most of the coal went into its hopper. To see 
what became of it after it was crushed, the lads fol- 
lowed their guide to the room below. 

Here was a lively scene. The first thing Lawrence 
noticed was a long, cylindrical screen, as large as a 
good-sized saw-log, rolling over and over, high up in 
the back part of the room. It was sifting the crushed 
coal, which was poured into one end of it by a spout 
from the breaker above. It was inclined iust enough 
to let the coal roll and rattle down slowly from the 
upper towards the lower end, as it revolved. The 


THE SCREEN-ROOM. 





« 




128 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


finest coal and dust fell out of it, first, into a second 
screen, which separated them. Next, coal of four 
different sizes fell into four separate spouts, or chutes, 
the largest size coming out of the coarsest meshes at 
the lower end of the screen. These screens and 
chutes occupied one entire division of the room ; and 
Lawrence now saw that there was another division, 
the exact counterpart of this ; so that there were in all 
four screens and eight chutes. The two upper screens 
slanted each way from the breaker above, and the 
chutes distributed the torrent of coal into little 
streams which poured down through the room. 

Here were the “ pickers ” ; and quick-fingered, 
sharp-eyed, black-nosed little people they were. 
There were over forty in the room, — boys of various 
ages, sitting on the sides of the chutes, or on boards 
laid across, one above the other, picking out pieces of 
slate and “bony” coal, as the black streams poured 
down. What one did not get, those below him on 
the chute were expected to see and take out. The 
little hands flew fast ; and the bad pieces went into 
wooden “slate-pockets” between the chutes. Law- 
rence, who could scarcely tell slate from coal at first 
sight, was amazed at their quickness of eye and hand. 

“ They are certainly throwing away coal ! ” said he, 
taking a lump which one was casting out. 

“ That ’s nothing but bone,” said Mr. Clarence. “ It 
came very near being coal, but I suppose there was 
a little too much earthy mud mixed with the carbon 
of the decaying forests. All our coal-beds are full of 


THE BREAKER. 


129 


slaty and bony seams, as you will see when we go 
into the mines.” 

“ The best we can do,” said the superintendent, “ a 
good deal of slate comes to the breaker, and has to 
be picked out here. The miners call it collum. Culm 
is the proper word. They call everything collum that 
goes into the waste heap. Would you like to look at 
that ? ” 

They went down into an archway beneath the 
screen-room, where they found a mule-car loading 
under a spout which led from one of the culm-bins. 
The car filled, the spout was closed, and the mule 
was driven off with his load along a track laid across 
the summit of an immense black mound, or small 
mountain, as it might truly be called. It spread out 
into the valley below, and must have contained hun- 
dreds of thousands of tons of “ collum,” — being 
composed entirely of slate and bone and coal-dust 
from this single colliery. 

"We dump here a hundred and twenty-five loads a 
day,” said the superintendent. 

“ In and about Scranton,” remarked Mr. Clarence, 
“ there are a dozen collieries, and each one has just 
such a 'collum dump/ as they call it. You have 
only to go around and look at them, to get a tol- 
erably big idea of the coal business of this little 
town.” 

On the steep sides of the black mountain three or 
four women and one crippled old man were picking- 
out the best pieces of bony coal, or pieces of slate to 

6 * 


130 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


which a little coal adhered, and putting them into 
hags and baskets to burn or to sell. 

From the culm dump the superintendent took his 
young friends down the hill-slope to the coal-bins, 
under the chutes, and showed them a coal-train 
loading from spouts. 

“ So you don’t have to shovel or handle the coal at 
all,” said Lawrence. 

“ Not from the time it leaves the miner’s chamber. 
From there it is drawn by mules to the foot of the 
shaft; then it is lifted by machinery, and poured 
through the breaker and down the chutes, travelling 
by its own weight, until it is taken off by the cars 
here. Even the cars, as you see,” added the superin- 
tendent, “ are so constructed that the coal can be 
dumped from them on to a coal-wharf, or into the 
hold of a vessel, through spouts, still without han- 
dling” 


V. 

THE SHAFT. 

They now returned to the engine-room, where Mr. 
Clarence found Muff keeping faithful guard over his 
cane. “ Present arms ! ” said Mr. Clarence. And 
Muff, getting up on his hind legs and turning about, 
with the cane balanced in his mouth, allowed his 
master to take it out. " Thank you,” said Mr. Clar- 
ence. And after that the dog went wherever the 
boys did. 


THE SHAFT. 


131 


“ I see you looking anxiously at the shaft,” said the 
superintendent, smiling at Lawrence. “ Won’t you 
be afraid to go down ? ” 

“ I don’t think I shall be afraid to go where any- 
body else does,” said Lawrence, gazing down into the 
shaft. But even as he spoke, he started back. 

Suddenly up out of the black pit rose a figure like 
a ghost. It was a moment before Lawrence perceived 
that it was really a form of flesh and blood, and, 
moreover, a boy of about his own age. He was 
standing on the naked beams of the carriage, with 
just one hand outstretched, holding on by a brace. 
This was all that supported him on his dark journey 
up the shaft. There was a little tin lamp hooked 
into his cap, the sallow flame of which, together with 
spots and streaks of coal-dust on his face, gave a sort 
of unearthly cast to his complexion. He wore no 
coat, and his shirt was open at the throat. The car- 
riage stopped when on a level with the floor at the 
head of the shaft ; he stepped off, and it sank down 
into the pit again. 

“ How would you like to ride in that style ? ” asked 
the superintendent. 

Lawrence thought that if another boy could hold 
on he could, and said he would like it. 

“ Well,” said the superintendent, “ I think we can 
do a little better by you than that. These boys ride 
up and down any way. I shall expect to see them 
clinging on to the rope like monkeys, soon. Owen,” 
said he to the ghost, “ I want you to go through the 






THE COAL.-3HAKT 




THE SHAFT. 


133 


mines with these young gentlemen, if you have 
time.” 

“ I ’ve time enough,” said Owen ; and his face 
lighted up with a bright and friendly smile, — not at 
all ghostly. 

“ What did I tell you ? ” Mr. Clarence whispered 
to Lawrence, while the superintendent went for an- 
other lamp. 

The lamp was brought, — a little teapot-shaped 
thing, with a hook for a handle, and a lighted wick 
in the spout. Lawrence took it. Then an empty car 
was stopped at the head of the shaft, and the three 
lads stepped into it, — Mr. Clarence with Muff in 
his arms. Then the signal was given ; the car began 
to sink ; and darkness surrounded them, streaked only 
by the dim rays of the lamps. 

“ Good by,” cried the superintendent, from above. 

“ Good by,” echoed the voices of the boys, from the 
depths of the hollow-sounding shaft. 

Down, down went the car, steadily, but by no means 
so fast as when it bore no freight of human lives. 
Lawrence held tight to his little lamp with one hand, 
and to the brace with the other, while he tried to get 
some idea of the depth of the shaft, by reflecting that, 
if the partitions were taken out, Bunker Hill Monu- 
ment would have made a very good plug for it. 

"Are you afraid?” said Owen, laughing. "A terri- 
ble accident happened in a shaft near here the other 
day ” ; and a shadow passed over his face at the recol- 
lection. “ A crowd of men were going into the mines 


134 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


one morning. They did n’t like to wait, so seventeen 
of ’em piled on to one car at once. The rope broke, 
and they fell two hundred feet. Fourteen got killed, 
and the other three got maimed for life.” 

“ That ’s a cheerful story to tell, when we are half- 
way down a shaft,” said Mr. Clarence. 

“ I thought you said there were iron dogs to fall 
into these notches in the guides, and hold the car, if 
the rope should break,” said Lawrence. 

“ The dogs would hold a loaded car that was going 
up, or a light load going down,” said Owen. 

“ Because,” added Mr. Clarence, "a car going up 
must stop before it can fall ; but, going down, it is 
already in motion, and if it has a heavy load on, it 
will break everything before it. But here we are, all 
right. Step out.” 

Lawrence was at first so bewildered that he hardly 
knew which way to step. He seemed to have dropped 
suddenly into the heart of an immense, black, branch- 
ing cavern. Strange noises filled his ears, and glan- 
cing lights moved like fireflies through the darkness. 
Then dim forms and sooty faces and shining eyes 
appeared around him. Everything had such an un- 
earthly look, that for a moment he could have fancied 
that he was in the bottomless pit, and that these were 
its proper inhabitants. 

“ Lean on me, look ! ” said Owen, “ then you shall 
not black yourself.” So Lawrence got out of the car 
without rubbing his clothes against it. “ This way, 
look ! ” cried Owen, again. “ There ’s water ! ” 


THE SHAFT. 


135 


The reservoir, or well, from which the water of the 
mines was pumped, was directly beneath the car, at 
the foot of the shaft ; and Lawrence thought he meant 
that. In avoiding it he ran under a little streaming 
shower that dripped from some point above — which 
was, in fact, the water Owen had wished to warn him 
against. 

“ What a stupid fellow I am ! ” he exclaimed. 
“ There goes my light ! ” — his little teapot of a lamp 
having been extinguished in his brief passage under 
the shower-bath. 

“ Never mind ; I can light it,” said Owen ; and 
whilst he was touching the flame of his own to the 
drenched wick, Lawrence had time to look about him 
and see more plainly where they were. 

He now perceived that the lights and the demons 
he had seen were men and boys with . lamps on their 
caps, and that the sounds he heard were the shouts of 
mule-drivers and the tinkling of mule-bells, mingled 
with the noise of water falling into the well. 

“ Now you see where the loads of coal come from,” 
said Mr. Clarence. 

The empty car in which they made the descent had 
already been pushed off from the carriage, along a 
track laid level with it ; and now a loaded car, stand- 
ing near by, was seized by men and boys, and pushed 
on. A bell- wire was then pulled (“ Signal for the 
engineer,” said Mr. Clarence), and up went the car- 
riage, with the car on it, disappearing instantly in the 
darkness of the shaft. 


136 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


“ Hark ! ” said Mr. Clarence. And in a few seconds 
they heard the faint thunder-peal of a load of coal 
dumped into the breaker three hundred feet above. 

“ That ’s disposing of a ton and a half of coal on 
short notice,” said Mr. Clarence. And almost while 
he was speaking the car came down again empty. 

Then another car was pushed on, and sent up. 
There was a long row of loaded cars waiting on the 
track, and others were coming in little trains of four 
or five, drawn by mules, out of the depths of the 
cavern. The whole made a picture which, seen by 
the dim light of the lamps, in the midst of surround- 
ing blackness, had a strange fascination for the eyes 
of Lawrence. 

Mr. Clarence now put down his dog Muff, and told 
him to take care of himself. 

“ I should think he would get as dirty here as in 
the breaker,” said Lawrence. 

“ It ’s a different kind of dirt,” said Mr. Clarence. 
“ It will be all on the outside, if he rubs against any- 
thing. But in the breaker he would get the coal-dust 
sifted into his wool, so it could never be washed out.” 

“ See here a minute,” said Owen ; and he led 
Lawrence to a frame of rough boards, like a box, set 
into the wall of the cavern. There were two holes in 
it, like a pair of great eyes, and he told Lawrence to 
look in through one of them. 

Lawrence climbed up on a ledge of slate, put his 
eye to the hole, and uttered an exclamation of sur- 
prise. He had expected to see nothing but darkness, 


THE SHAFT. 137 

in such a place ; but it was like looking into a show- 
box. 

“ What do you see ? ” said Mr. Clarence. 

“ I see a little room, with a clock in it.” 

“ What time is it ? ” asked Owen. 

“ Ten minutes past three, — as plain as can be ! 
Where does the light come from on the face of the 
clock ? ” 

Lawrence looked around, and saw Owen at his side 
laughing. 

“ Where did it come from ? Look again,” said Owen. 

He looked again, and declared that the box was as 
dark as a pocket. Then in an instant it was lighted 
up again. Turning his head quickly, he saw Owen 
holding a lamp at the other hole. 

“ Why do you keep a clock boxed up in that way ? ” 
he asked. 

“ It ’s handy, look I ” said Owen. “ A man wants 
to know the time ; he puts his eye to one hole, and 
his lamp to the other, and there it is. If the clock 
was n’t boxed up, it would n’t be there to-morrow.” 

“ I see,” said Lawrence, who understood that it 
would be stolen. 

A number of men, with lamps on their hats and tin 
pails in their hands, were coming along by the railroad 
track, and crowding near the shaft. 

“ They have got through work, and are waiting to 
go up,” said Owen. 

Half a dozen of them jumped into the next empty 
car that came down, the engineer was signalled to lift 
slowly, and up they went to the head of the shaft. 


138 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


VI. 

IN TOE GANGWAY. 

“ I see here but one set of cars going up and down,” 
said Lawrence. “ But at the head of the shaft they 
were moving on both sides.” 

“We are working two veins of coal/’ said Owen. 
“This is what we call the Rock Vein ; the other is 
the Diamond Vein, thirty feet above. The other cars 
stop there.” 

“ Thirty feet ! and what is between the two veins ? ” 

“ Slate, mostly. There ’s always layers of sandstone, 
limestone, slate, clay, — one or all of ’em, — between 
the different coal veins,” said Owen. And seeing the 
astonishment of Lawrence, who, after all he had heard 
and read on the subject, had but a faint idea of a coal 
formation, he continued, “ Fifty feet below this vein 
there is another, — what we call the Big Vein, — 
fourteen feet thick. Then there are five more veins 
below that. There are two more above the Diamond. 
They will all pay to work, some day, after we get 
these two veins worked out. Then there are several 
little veins besides.” 

“ By veins said Mr. Clarence, “ he means seams or 
beds. Coal lies in layers, which can’t properly be 
called veins, though this is the term used everywhere 
in the anthracite regions, — except by my uncle and 
myself,” he added, with pleasing vanity. “Some 
minerals lie in streaks ; and those are properly called 


IN THE GANGWAY. 


139 


veins. Go into the soft-coal regions, and you won’t 
hear coal-beds called veins! 1 

“ Why are they called so here ? ” 

“ I suppose it is because the anthracite beds are so 
tumbled and broken up in some places. Just here 
you see them lying nearly all on a level, or undulating 
something like the surface of a hilly country. But 
go into mines where I have been ! Some of the 
seams are perpendicular, or keeled over, or broken up 
by faults, so that it appears ridiculous to call them 
beds.” 

“ Are n’t the soft-coal beds tumbled up too ? ” 

“Nothing like the anthracite. They all lie as 
nearly level as these beds here. There ’s a very 
pretty scientific fact connected with this difference in 
the two formations,” Mr. Clarence continued. “ Soft 
coal is more or less bituminous, while anthracite has 
no bitumen in it. But there ’s no doubt but what 
they were both formed in the same way, and out of 
the same materials. The ancient forests I told you 
of decayed in the water and made black mud, which 
a certain degree of heat and pressure condensed into 
soft coal. There the bituminous coal-fields were left, 
and were not much disturbed afterwards. But in the 
anthracite region there was subsequent volcanic 
action, which heaved and broke up the coal measures, 
and with its intense heat expelled the bituminous 
matters and hardened the coal still more. The best 
evidence in support of this theory is, that here you 
have igneous rocks, — or rocks that were melted 


140 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


matter when they were heaved up from the bowels 
of the earth, — while in the bituminous regions you 
have none.” 

“Are the anthracite regions as extensive as the 
bituminous ? ” 

“ My dear sir, nothing in comparison. The biggest 
part of the anthracite coal-field lies in Luzerne and 
Schuylkill Counties, here in Eastern Pennsylvania ; 
while the bituminous coal-fields extend over nearly 
all the western portion of the State, and over large 
portions of other States, and over other parts of the 
world ; though I believe,” added Mr. Clarence, “ that 
a little anthracite is found, in the neighborhood of 
igneous rocks, in some bituminous regions. This is 
all Greek to you, is n’t it, my little Welshman ? ” he 
said to Owen. 

“ I don’t understand anything about it/’ replied 
Owen, laughing. 

“ I knew it,” said Mr. Clarence. “ It is singular, — 
men who work in coal-mines all their lives generally 
know nothing more about the history of the coal 
formation than your day-laborers in Massachusetts. 
Some men who call themselves mining engineers are 
just as ignorant. Yet this Welsh boy can tell you 
all about the coal, as it lies in the mines, and the 
gangways and chambers are as familiar to him as the 
streets of your native village are to you. How thick, 
Owen, is this ‘ Rock Vein,’ as you call it ? ” 

“ Nine feet,” replied Owen, quickly. “ The Dia- 
mond Vein is seven feet.” 


IN THE GANGWAY. 141 

" All solid coal ? ” said Lawrence, looking at the 
black wall of the cavern. 

“All but the slate in it. The coal is in three 
benches,” said Owen. 

Then Lawrence had to ask what benches were ; 
and Mr. Clarence was well pleased to be able to in- 
form him. 

“ 1 told you how layers of slate occur in the coal- 
beds, did n’t I ? The bed may be even twenty or 
thirty feet thick, but it won’t be one clean body of 
coal. Every two or three feet, or oftener, you come 
to a thin seam of slate running through it. The coal 
that lies in these natural divisions, between the slate 
seams, we call benches. Here there is a roof of slate.” 
Mr. Clarence took the lamp from Lawrence’s hand, 
and held it high above their heads. “ Then, between 
that and the bottom,” — passing the lamp down the 
wall, — “ there are two slate seams j see if you can tell 
where they are.” 

“It all looks alike to me, coal and slate,” said Law- 
rence, his eye glancing along the uniform blackness 
of the wall. “ Ah ! ” he suddenly exclaimed, “ I see ! 
This little ridge ! Here must be one of the slate 
seams ! and here is the other ! ” 

“ You would make a miner,” said Owen, smiling, 
as they walked on. 

“ Are you a miner ? ” Lawrence asked. 

“ My father is, and I mean to be. I come down at 
noon to bring his dinner, and stop and help him 
sometimes.” 


142 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


“ Do you like it ? ” 

“ I like it well. If you work in the mines awhile,” 
said Owen, “you never want to do anything else. 
‘ Once a miner, always a miner/ my father says.” 

“ Why so ? ” said Lawrence. 

“ The miner is his own boss, look,” said Owen, 
stopping, and facing the visitors, his bright Welsh 
eyes shining with animation under his lamp-hung 
cap. “ He can work, or he can sit still. He works 
six or eight hours a day, and earns good pay. It is 
never hot and it is never cold in the mines. It is 
about the same thing the year round. You work 
here a few years, then you go to work outside, and it 
is bad. You can’t stand the heat. You can’t stand 
the cold. You are glad to get back into the mines.” 

They walked on again, keeping the car-track, be- 
tween black walls of coal. “ It is like a street rail- 
road,” said Lawrence, — “ only the track is narrow, 
and the street is n’t so wide as I thought it was.” 

“ This is what we call a gangway, or drift,” said Mr. 
Clarence. “ It is the main passage from the breasts 
or chambers to the shaft. It is cut out just the depth 
of the coal-bed, and wide enough to accommodate the 
cars. In thin coal-beds, — they often work those 
that are only two or three feet thick, — they cut 
down enough of the top rock to make a passage for 
the cars. 

“ And to give the miners room to work. I suppose,” 
said Lawrence. 

“ No,” said Owen ; “ miners can work where a man 


IN THE GANGWAY. 


143 


can’t stand. My father once worked in a coal-vein, 
in the old country, where he had to lie on his side 
when he used the pick. The vein was only a foot 
and a half thick ; but he got out the coal.” 

“ Then why not invent a low car, that will carry 
the coal through low gangways, and save cutting out 
the rock ? ” said Lawrence. 

“ To invent a low car is easy enough,” said Mr. 
Clarence, with a laugh at his friend’s simplicity ; “ but 
it is n’t *so easy to invent a low mule.” 

Owen laughed too. Lawrence was glad his blushes 
were hidden by the darkness of the drift. But, to 
show that he had not spoken so inconsiderately as 
Mr. Clarence supposed, he retorted quickly, “Haul 
the cars by machinery ; — why not ? ” 

“ That ’s not so bad an idea,” said Mr. Clarence, his 
respect for his friend’s intelligence somewhat restored. 

“ My father tells how, in the old country, women 
used to carry the coal out of the mines,” said Owen. 
“ The men mined it, and the women carried it. A 
woman would carry a load of coal heavier than she 
was up slopes, or stairs ; and maybe she would have 
a quarter of a mile to travel before she could put it 
down.” 

“ That is a horrible story ! ” said Lawrence, who had 
never seen women do hard work, and could scarcely 
believe that such things were tolerated in a Christian 
country. 

“ A reform, in this respect, has taken place in the 
British collieries, within a few years,” said Mr. Clar- 


144 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


ence. “ Now a small steam-engine that burns only 
four or five tons of coal a day does work it would take 
five hundred women to do.” 

Lawrence concluded that steam was a good mission- 
ary, if it could convert people from such barbarous 
practices. 

“ It is the great agent of modern civilization,” said 
Mr. Clarence, in his eloquent way. “ Our steamships, 
railroads, factories, a thousand industrial enterprises, 
are dependent upon it ; but what is steam itself de- 
pendent on ? Without coal, steam would be a limping 
cripple. This big black fellow, in whose bed we now 
are, is doing a good share of the work of the world. 
Did I say four or five tons did the work of five hun- 
dred women ? It is a low estimate. Ten pounds of 
coal, economically applied to steam-power, are con- 
sidered equal to a day’s work by one man. Then a 
ton and a half of coal may be set down as equal to 
the labor of one man for a year. I have seen a care- 
ful calculation, to that effect, in one of my uncle’s 
books.” 

“ I wonder who first thought of digging out coal 
and burning it,” said Lawrence. 

“ Nobody knows who first used soft coal for fuel,” 
Mr. Clarence replied. “ It has been in use in Eng- 
land for hundreds of years, though it was only after 
the forests began to disappear, and the steam-engine 
was invented, and gas-light came into fashion, that 
the immense coal-trade was developed which now 
makes the prosperity of that little island. This an- 


IN THE GANGWAY. 


145 


tliracite business is another thing. It has all been 
developed within fifty years, though there is evidence 
that the first blacksmiths in the country began to use 
the stone coal, as it was called ( anthracite is only a 
Greek word for the same thing), a hundred years ago. 
It took the rest of the world half a century to find out 
how to burn the thing. Neither philosophers nor 
fools could make a fire of it, in a common stove or fire- 
place. Bituminous coal will kindle and burn with a 
flame like wood; but hard coal required different 
treatment, and a peculiar kind of grate. Then, when 
it did burn, it was found superior to any other coal 
for many purposes. Though hard to kindle, it makes 
an intense heat, and no smoke. And now,” Mr. Clar- 
ence concluded, “ though it is confined to so small an 
area, compared with the vast fields of bituminous coal, 
there is about as much anthracite mined in this State, 
every year, as there is of other coaL” 

Meanwhile, the boys walked on through the black 
gangway, which seemed interminable to Lawrence. It 
was lighted only by the two little lamps they carried, 
which made a dim halo about them, in the midst of 
darkness that retreated slowly before, and followed 
close behind, as they moved on. Occasionally, little 
incidents diversified the gloomy monotony of the trip. 
Now they approached a faintly-shining beam, seen 
afar off in the cavernous darkness, which grew to a 
little yellow glow in a corner, as they came near, and 
proved to be the light of a tiny lamp on the ground, 
close under the wall of coal. Sitting near it, between 
7 J 


146 AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 



THE DOORKEEPER. 


two stout wooden props supporting the slate roof, was 
a boy, who seemed at first glance a mere imp of dark- 
ness. He was not more than nine or ten years old, 
and 0 so small and black ! He seemed to be playing 
with something on a black slab of slate, between him 
and the lamp. On coming up to him, what was Law- 
rence’s surprise to see that the little fellow was amus- 


IN THE GANGWAY. 147 

ing himself, there in the solitude of the mine, with a 
pack of cards almost as black as his fingers. 

Close by was a large wooden door which completely 
closed the gangway, — “to shut off the air-current, 
and force it in another direction,” Mr. Clarence said, — 
and this child was the doorkeeper. 

“ Are n’t you lonesome here ? ” Lawrence asked. 

“ Not much,” the urchin replied, looking up with a 
grin. “ It ain’t so nice when my lamp burns out, and 
I can’t get oil. But the mule-teams are passing all 
the time.” 

While he was speaking the shout of a driver was 
heard, and a light was seen approaching. Then ap- 
peared a train of empty cars, accompanied by a boy, 
with the usual lamp on his hat. The child sprang to 
his feet, and threw the gate open ; Owen and the two 
visitors stepped aside between the props of the gang- 
way ; the train passed through, the driver shouting to 
the trampling mules, and the great door flapped to- 
gether again. 

The visitors and their guide soon followed the 
train, while the little fellow returned to his cheerful 
game of cards. 

“ How I pity him ! ” said Lawrence. “ I wish I 
could give him something to amuse him, alone there 
in the dark ! ” 

“ He is well enough off,” laughed Owen. “ He is 
happy. You should hear my father tell of boys in the 
mines of the old country, who can’t even have a light.” 

Along a channel beside the gangway flowed a rivulet 


148 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


towards the shaft, — its low, gentle ripple sounding 
hollow and strange in those dismal depths. That was 
all the noise they heard for some distance, as they 
walked on. Then suddenly came a terrific thunder- 
peal, which seemed to shake the earth, and made 
Lawrence for a moment think the roof was coming 
down upon their heads. 

“ Now here we are, look ! ” was all the comment 
Owen made upon this little incident, which might 
well startle a stranger. 


VII. 

THE MINERS AT WORK. 

They passed a railroad switch, and followed a side 
track, which turned off into what seemed a winding 
cavern. It was narrow at the entrance, hut it grew 
wider and wider, as they advanced. All was dark 
before them at first, but as they kept on around the 
curve of the track, dim lights appeared, glimmering 
through a thick, bluish cloud. The broad, flat roof 
was supported by rows of wooden props. Beside the 
car-track were heaps of slate that had been taken out 
of the coal. And now Lawrence, if he had not already 
guessed the nature of the explosion he had heard, was 
made aware of it by the strong odor of blasting-powder 
which swept over him with a cloud of smoke. 

cr This is what we call a chamber, or breast,” said 
Mr. Clarence. 


THE MIXERS AT WORK. 


149 


At the farther end of it, where the lights were, 
seventy-five or eighty yards from the entrance, two 
men were at work in the thickest of the smoke. One 
was clearing away the fragments which the blast had 
blown out from the bottom of the coal-seam. This 
was the miner’s “ laborer.” The other was examining 
the opening that had just been made, and evidently 
studying how to place his next charge of powder. 
This was the miner himself. Both were begrimed 
with powder-smoke and coal-dust, the effect of which 
was heightened, to Lawrence’s imagination, by the 
cloud and stench in which they worked. 

Owen stepped nimbly over the rubbish, the others 
following, — all but Muff. Mr. Clarence had left 
him, with his cane, at the entrance to the chamber. 
Then Owen astonished Lawrence very much by say- 
ing quietly, as the miner turned and looked at them, 
with an honest, kindly face under its grime, — 

“ This is my father.” 

Lawrence was, in fact, taken so much by surprise 
at this introduction, that he offered to shake hands, 
— an evidence of weakness on his part that once 
more, for the moment, quite lost him the respect of 
his friend, Mr. Clarence. 

The sensible Welshman declined the honor, show- 
ing his blackened hands, and said, “ You have come 
to see the coal-mines, have you ? ” 

Lawrence said he had, and began to ask questions 
with regard to the manner in which the coal was got 
out. 



COAL-MINER 



THE MINERS AT WORK. 


151 


“ It is very simple, look ! ” replied the miner. (The 
father, like the son, had an odd way of throwing in 
that little word look, when he was speaking.) “ You 
put in your charge of powder, and blow it out.” 

*' Do you have to blow all of it ? ” 

“ Every yard. I work under the vein, look. I 
work out here a space, at the bottom, about five feet 
high, and twelve feet deep. Then I put in a heavy 
charge above, and blow down the top.” 

“ How much coal do you blow out at a time ? ” 

“ A couple of tons or so, when I am working out 
the bottom. Then when I blow down the top, I get 
a good many tons, sometimes.” 

“ You must drill pretty deep for that.” 

“ Yes, we sink the drill five or six feet generally, 
to get a good blast. There *s everything in taking ad- 
vantage of the way the coal lays. It is n’t like 
mining soft coal, look. There you work under the 
bottom bench with a pick, and then break down the 
rest from the top with wedges. You don’t blast at 
all, only when the rock is in your way.” 

“ What sound is that ? ” asked Lawrence. 

Both men had stopped work for the moment ; and 
now could be heard a regular, dull click-click-click, 
which seemed to be somewhere in the solid wall of 
coal close beside them. 

“ That is the miner drilling in the next chamber.” 

“ How far off is he ? ” 

“About twenty feet. He keeps his breast along 
about even with mine. We are in, now, about two 
hundred and fifty feet from the gangway.” 


152 


among the coal-miners. 


“ How deep do you drive your chambers ? ” 

“ About three hundred feet, along here. Some- 
times we go deeper, and sometimes not so deep.” 

“ Then how do you get out the coal beyond ? ” 

“Drive breasts from other gangways,” said the 
miner. 

Lawrence could have remained a long time watch- 
ing him at his work, and talking with him ; but 
Owen suggested that they had a great deal yet to see, 
and that it was getting late. So they took leave of 
the miner, and started to go back to the entrance to 
the chamber, where Mr. Clarence had left Muff. 

In the next chamber they found two men and a 
boy. The miner, whom they had already heard at 
his work, through the immense partition-wall, — or 
“ pillar,” as it is called, — was standing on a pile of 
rubbish driving his drill horizontally into the face of 
the coal-seam near the top. The laborer was separat- 
ing the large fragments of coal from the slate, and 
the boy was sitting on a heap, separating the smaller 
pieces. They cast the slate aside, and threw the coal 
into a car, which had been drawn in on the track to 
the end of the chamber to be loaded. 

In another chamber they found the miner working 
in under the seam. He was several feet beyond the 
face of it, and the top part hung over him and his 
little lamp like a tremendous ledge of black rock. It 
was so low that he could not stand erect. The boys, 
stooping, wen* in where he was at work. 

“ I have just this corner to blow out,” he told 


THE MINERS AT WORK. 


153 


them ; “ then I shall put in a charge under the roof, 
and bring down all this coal overhead.” 

Lawrence asked if he did n’t find it hard work to 
drill where he had to stoop so low. 

“ This is nothing,” said the man. And he went on 
to tell how he had worked in coal-seams so thin that 
the miner could never stand upright, from the mo- 
ment he entered his chamber till he left it. “I 
mined in one such,” said he, “ that pitched like the 
roof of a house. Imagine two steep roofs, one four 
feet above the other, and yourself getting out coal 
between them.” 

“ How did you manage it ? Did you work down 
from the top ? ” 

“ We worked up from the bottom. We kept the 
gangway below us, and run the coal down to it in 
chutes.” 

In another chamber they found the miner just pre- 
paring to blast. The boys retreated around the curve 
at the entrance, and waited for the fire to eat its way 
up through the fuse into the powder. Then came the 
explosion. Lawrence was expecting it, this time, and 
was not frightened ; yet there was to his inexperienced 
nerves something fearful in the sudden concussion of 
air, which seemed to smite him with an angry buffet 
in the face and breast. The vast pillars of coal that 
upheld the hill seemed to tremble ; and the roaring 
gust of sound swept on through the recesses of the 
mines. 


7 * 


154 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


VIII. 

CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 

In traversing the gangways and chambers, Lawrence 
noticed many places where there had evidently once 
been openings in the walls, but which were now 
closed. Some were boarded up, and some were built up 
with slabs of slate. Those on one side of the gang- 
way, Owen said, were the entrances to old chambers 
that had been worked out and closed up. “ Those on 
the other side are air-courses. They go through into 
another gangway, parallel to this. Wherever we run 
one gangway, look, we run another alongside of it. 
They are thirty feet apart. The chambers branch off 
to the right from the gangway we are in ; and they 
branch off to the left from the other.” 

“ Why do you run two gangways ? ’ 

“ To get ventilation. You don’t understand.” 
Owen, in his eagerness to explain, dropped down in a 
half-sitting posture against the coal-pillar, and, taking 
a piece of chalk from his pocket, drew a white line 
down a leg of his trousers, while Lawrence held his 
little lamp, and Mr. Clarence and Muff looked on. 
“ Now this is the gangway, look. Now this is the 
other gangway, look ” ; and he drew a parallel line. 
“ Now these are the cross-cuts, or air-passages ” ; and 
he united the two with short chalk-lines drawn across 
from one to the other at intervals. “ They are a 
hundred and twenty feet apart. Now here, on the 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


155 



OWEN’S DIAGRAM. 


opposite side from the air-courses, are the chambers. 
They sweep round the way they do, for the car- track 
must be curved ; the cars could n’t very well turn a 
square corner, look. The openings to the chambers 
are fifteen feet wide, with fifty-four feet of pillar 
between.” 

“ Why so thick a pillar ? ” 

“ To hold the roof up. But the chambers branch 


156 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


out, as you go in, till they leave only twenty foot of 
pillar between them. That ’s as little as it is safe to 
leave. The wooden props just keep the roof of the 
chamber from falling; but the pillars are the main 
support. Rob them, and your whole roof is coming 
down, look ! ” 

Lawrence did look, with a slight start, but perceived 
that his roof was safe and that Owen was merely il- 
lustrating a possibility. 

“ Now about the ventilation. Miners could n’t live 
a day without that. The fire-damp would fill up the 
mines, and cause explosions. Then the powder-smoke 
and the breaths of so many men and mules would be 
stifling. So, in driving a gangway, you shall drive an 
air-course all the way beside it, — as they do in some 
mines, — or drive a parallel gangway, so as to send 
the air-current up one and down the other. You 
make this cross-cut, look, to let the air pass through. 
Then, when you get much beyond that, you open a 
new cross-cut, and close up the last one. In this way 
you keep on, closing up the cross-cuts behind you, so 
as to force the air always through the new one, near 
where you are at work. Then there are cross-cuts 
from one chamber to another, and the air is driven 
through them by shutting a door in the gangway. 
When the miner gets much beyond a cross-cut, he 
begins to suffer for air; so he opens another, and 
stops the last one.” 

Owen had by this time a rude diagram on his trou- 
sers, the black surface of which represented the coal. 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


157 


while the white lines and filling represented gangways, 
air-courses, and chambers. He now proceeded to show 
how the currents of air circulated through the mines, 
and were drawn out by means of the ventilating fan 
in the air-shaft. 

Mr. Clarence meanwhile looked on somewhat super- 
ciliously. “Just lend me your trousers-leg and piece 
of chalk a minute,” he said, giving his cane to Muff 
to hold. “ That ” — pointing at Owen’s diagram — 
“ is an absurd system of mining and ventilation. Now 
this is my uncle’s system.” Using the Welsh boy’s 
patches for a blackboard, he prepared to demonstrate. 
“It saves a large part of this astonishing waste of coal 
left in the pillars, for one thing. And besides — ” 

At that moment Muff dropped the cane and darted 
with wild yelps into the darkness. 

“ What ’s that ? ” cried Mr. Clarence, jumping up. 
“ It must be a cat ! He ’s a terrible fellow for cats. 
If I don’t look out, I shall lose him ! ” 

“ If he follows the cat, I know just where she ’ll go,” 
said Owen, putting his blackboards in lively motion, 
and following the dog that had followed the cat, while 
Lawrence and Mr. Clarence followed him. 

He soon brought them to what Lawrence at first 
thought was a coal-chamber ; but, on entering it, he 
found it was a stable. The floor was littered, and, 
ranged along by the wall, was a row of mangers, under 
one of which they found Muff, sure enough, barking 
at a hole where his game had found refuge. 

“ The cats down here are used to dogs,” said Owen. 
“ Here ’s where they generally hide from ’em.” 


158 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS- 


“ Cats and dogs in the mines ! ” exclaimed Lawrence, 
“ That is what I never expected to see.” 

“ One of our miners has a dog that brings him his 
dinner. He comes to the head of the shaft at noon, 
with the pail in his mouth, and waits till a car is 
stopped for somebody going down ; then he jumps 
aboard, and jumps out again at the foot of the shaft, 
and finds his way to the chamber where his master 
is, without any light, unless the mule-teams happen 
to be passing.” 

Lawrence was much interested in this and other 
dog-stories Owen and Clarence had to tell. But what 
was the use of cats in the mines ? 

“ To kill off the rats,” said Owen. 

“ You have rats down here too ? ” 

“We used to have thousands of ’em. They got so' 
thick one time, before we had cats, that they had no 
fear of you at all. They would fill a manger soon as 
ever you fed a mule, and go to eating right at his 
nose. You could take up a shovelful of ’em. You 
might kill as many as you pleased, there ’d be more 
the next time. They robbed the mules. So Mr. 
Lewis says one day, — he ’s the inside foreman ; we 
call the superintendent you saw the outside foreman ; 
Mr. Lewis manages all the work in the mines, — he 
says one day, ‘ Boys,’ he says, ‘ I ’ll give any one of 
you a quarter, look, that will bring me a cat to-morrow.’ 
So the next morning I puts a cat in a basket and 
ties the cover on, and conies down with her to see the 
fun wheiL we let her out. At first she did n’t know 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


159 


what to make of the strange place. But all at once 
she smells a rat, and gives a pounce, and comes out 
from under a manger growling and scuffling with a 
monstrous big rat in her mouth. Some other boys 
brought cats, and I bet the rats suffered ! Now the 
cats are as much at home here as ever you saw cats 
anywhere. They seem to like the mines. They come 
purring and rubbing themselves around the miners, 
who always give ’em bits of their dinner. But the 
rats have just about disappeared.” 

Lawrence noticed that the mangers were covered 
with sheet-iron, which had been put on, Owen said, 
to prevent, not the rats, but the mules themselves, 
from gnawing the wood. “ They ’d eat the mangers 
all up in a little while, if we did n’t sheathe ’em. 
Look at this prop.” 

It was an oaken post as thick as Owen’s body ; and 
it had been so nearly gnawed in two, that a smart 
push with the hand might have broken it quite off. 
Several other props were in almost as bad a condition. 

“ I advise your foreman to have these props ironed,” 
said Mr. Clarence. “ If he don’t, some of your un- 
easy mules will be playing the part of blind Samson, 
and pulling your house down.” 

Lawrence asked whether the stables were intended 
merely as a dining-hall for the mules, or whether 
they were kept in them over night. 

“We stable them here all winter,” said Owen. 
“ The hostler comes down and feeds ’em. The black- 
smith comes down and shoes ’em. The doctor comes 


160 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


down and doctors ’em, if they are sick. But in sum^ 
mer we stable ’em outside. They are going out now,” 
said Owen, leading the way back to the gangway. 

A train of mules was passing, with boys on their 
backs, stooping on the animals’ necks as they passed 
under low portions of the roof. Other boys — door- 
keepers or slate-pickers — were following on foot, 
calling out, “Wait and give me a ride !” “Take me 
on, after you get outside ! ” with other like hopeful 
phrases, all aiming to establish comfortable relations 
between the mules’ backs and the legs of the pursu- 
ing boys. 

Owen described the characters of some of the mules 
as they passed. “ That one with the muzzle on bites. 
That other one kicks — look out ! That last kicked 
up and threw three boys over his head the other day; 
he thought two on his back was enough.” 

“ How many mules are there ? ” 

“ Twenty, besides them that belong to the water- 
cars.” 

“ Now my young friend will want to know what 
water-cars are for,” said Mr. Clarence, bringing Muff 
away in his arms. 

Owen soon had an opportunity of showing. They 
came to what he called a “ basin,” where the coal-bed 
lay lower than the foot of the shaft and the main 
gangways. It was like a hollow between hills, in 
which a pond of water settles, too low to be drained 
off. Here some men and boys were at work bailing. 
They dipped up the water into cars having tank-like 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


161 


boxes, which, when filled, were drawn np to the top 
of the hill,” as Owen said, — properly enough, though 
it sounded oddly to Lawrence to hear him talk of a 
hill two hundred and fifty feet below the surface 
of the ground. The water was there emptied out, 
where it would run down the other slope of the gang- 
way towards the shaft. 

“ Drainage,” observed Mr. Clarence, “ is of quite as 
much importance in coal-mining as ventilation. If 
it was n’t for that, all these drifts and chambers would 
soon be full of water. I wish I had time, and I ’d 
show you my uncle’s beautiful system ! ” He felt in 
his pocket for the piece of chalk, at the same time 
casting wistful glances at Owen’s inviting trousers- 
legs. But it was getting too late for demonstrations 
on the blackboard. 

“ Mr. Lewis is going to rig a little steam pump, and 
force the water up the hill,” said Owen. “ He ’ll 
bring the steam all the way from the engine-room 
in pipes, and run a little bit of an engine down here, 
that will save the labor of four men and four mules, 
day and night.” 

“ But we are a long way from the shaft, are n’t 
we ? ” said Lawrence, who thought, by the distance 
they had travelled, they must be at least a mile 
from it. 

“ Only about six hundred feet,” said Owen. “ The 
gangways make a circuit. We have been coming 
round towards the point we started from. How you 
shall go up into the Diamond Vein, and see how 


162 


AMONG THE COAL-MINEKS. 


Mr. Lewis is managing to drain the low part of 
that.” 

“ How do we get into it ? ” Lawrence asked, remem- 
bering that it was thirty feet above their heads. 

Owen answered by leading the way to a low, nar- 
row passage, which sloped np from the gangway and the 
lower coal-seam into strata of clear slate. This, Owen 
said, was a tunnel which Mr. Lewis had lately had 
constructed, as an avenue of communication between 
the two coal-beds. It started from what he called 
the top of the hill, in the lower bed, and went across, 
by a gentle ascent, to the bottom of the corresponding 
hill in the upper bed. To explain this, Owen had to 



stop and chalk out a diagram on a slab of slate ; by 
which means he succeeded in conveying the idea 
quite clearly, although, when he came to write in 
words to indicate the places of the tunnel , and the 
Diamond and Rock Veins, he showed himself some- 
what less familiar with the spelling-book than with 
the mines. 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


163 


“ Look here,” said Mr. Clarence, examining the jag- 
ged walls of the tunnel, which were pure argillaceous 
slate (or slate that had once been clay), beneath the 
Diamond Vein. “You can see the broken ends of 
fossil roots.” 

“ The slate here was full of such,” said Owen. 
“ Sometimes great big roots — only not roots, look, 
but stone — would come out, all perfect.” 

Lawrence had thought that he already understood 
how the forests which made the coal-beds had their 
roots in underlying beds of clay ; but now the fact 
became as it were a visible reality to him, and he was 
for a moment lost in wonder at Nature’s vast and 
mysterious operations. “ How long ago,” thought he, 
“ these immense forests must have been growing and 
decaying ! How useless they must have seemed, — 
if there had been anybody on the earth then to think 
about them ! And now, after ages and ages, here they 
are in great, thick layers of coal, for the use of man, 
at a time when he needs it, and could n’t, as I see, do 
without it.” Lawrence was not a particularly pious 
boy, but somehow a deep still sense of Infinite Love 
and Wisdom, — a Divine Providence, — forming and 
governing the world, stole over him, like a shadow of 
invisible wings. 

He inquired if the coal of the two veins was of 
precisely the same quality. Owen said not quite, 
though they were both first-rate white-ash veins. 
Mr. Clarence said that the coal of no two beds any- 
where was precisely the same, — though anthracite 


164 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


did n’t show, by any means, such decided differences 
as the soft kinds did. “ Some anthracite is very 
gassy, and some makes clinkers, or is full of slate 
and bone ; while some burns without throwing off 
much gas, and leaves little besides ashes in the 
grate.” 

Then Lawrence wished to know the difference be- 
tween white and red ash coal; and Mr. Clarence 
replied that red-ash was simply anthracite containing 
a small percentage of oxide of iron, or iron rust, which 
gave to its ashes their peculiar color. He went on to 
discourse in a quite learned way about the widely 
different varieties of bituminous coal, — how some 
would melt and run together, or “ cake,” in the fire ; 
how some, containing perhaps quite as much bitumen, 
would not “ cake,” and were consequently considered 
more valuable for most purposes ; how one sort 
yielded the largest amount of coal-oil, and another 
the largest amount of illuminating gas ; how cannel- 
coal was probably so named because it burned with 
such a beautiful, clear flame, like a candle, or canncl , 
— as the word is pronounced in the Lancashire dia- 
lect, in England, and so forth, — the young gentleman 
talking loudly amidst the noise of a torrent that 
poured down through the tunnel from the upper coal- 
vein. 

“It was mostly for the water that Mr. Lewis had 
this tunnel cut through,” said Owen, as soon as he 
could get a chance to slip in a word. “ When he first 
took charge of the mines, a few years ago, he found 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


165 


twenty-six men bailing water, up in this Diamond 
Vein, like those you saw below. The first thing he 
said was , 4 Stop spending so much money that way/ 
Of course he knew the chambers would fill with 
water; but he said, ‘ Let ’em fill/ He just stopped 
work in ’em, and blew out the tunnel, look ; and now 
he is driving a new gangway around behind the 
chambers, to tap ’em.” 

Into this new gangway Owen conducted his friends, 
after having shown them the old gangway and the 
chambers filled with water. 

They had not proceeded far when they saw a lamp 
moving through the darkness before them. 

“ There ’s Mr. Lewis himself ! ” cried Owen. 
" Quick ! and you ’ll see him tap a chamber.” 

Eager to know what tapping a chamber was, Law- 
rence hurried on with Mr. Clarence after their guide, 
and soon came up with the “inside foreman,” just as 
he was entering a short new chamber which had 
been driven up from the new gangway so as to strike 
the end of one of the old chambers. 

They found him to be a plain, sensible, pleasant 
Welshman ; and he took a good deal of pains to ex- 
plain to them what he was going to do. 

“ The old chambers, understand, are full of water. 
They pitch towards the bottom of the basin ; and as 
soon as we stopped bailing they filled. How I come 
directly to the bottom of the basin with the tunnel, 
and work this new gangway around by the lower end 
of the drowned chambers. Before, the water had to 


166 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


be drawn in cars up one slope, and poured down 
another ; but now I make it travel with its own legs, 
down through the tunnel and the Bock Vein, direct 
to the shaft. That saves the work of many men and 
mules. You see this plug.” 

The boys saw it, — a large round stick of wood, 
driven near the bottom of the wall of coal, at the end 
of the new chamber. 

“It stops a hole that has been drilled through into 
one of the drowned chambers. It would n’t do, 
understand, to break through and let all the water 
out at once ; it would flood everything. So we drill 
holes, and plug ’em, and then draw off the water by 
degrees. Now I unplug this. In a day or two I un- 
plug another ; and so on, till we get rid of all the 
water, without giving the pump at the shaft too much 
to do at once. Step back, or you ’ll be spattered.” 

So saying, he loosened the plug with his foot, and 
pulled it out. It was followed by a jet of water, the 
gushing force of which indicated the powerful press- 
ure on the other side. It shot out horizontally from 
the aperture, fell in a gentle curve, and, plashing into 
a channel cut for it, added its tribute to the torrent 
pouring down through the tunnel. 

Beturning from the Diamond Vein, Lawrence asked 
why they could not go up by one of the shaft-cars, 
which Owen had said stopped there. 

“ Because the cars have done running by this time,” 
replied the little Welshman. 

“ Then how are we to get out of the mines, if we 
can’t go up the shaft ? ” 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


167 



TAPPING A CHAMBER. 


“ I ’ll show you,” said Owen, mysteriously. 

Lawrence reflected that there must be a way out 
for the mules, besides the shaft, and said nothing. 

They were in the Rock Vein again, passing an air- 
course, when Owen stopped. 

" Here was a man killed the other day,” said he. 
*< There was fire-damp here ; and he went in with his 
lamp.” 


168 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


“ Fire-damp,” said Mr. Clarence, anticipating Law- 
rence’s question, “is wliat men of science” (“like 
myself,” his manner seemed to say) “ call light car- 
buretted hydrogen ; it is a gas composed of one part 
carbon and two parts hydrogen. The fissures of the 
coal formation are full of it. It shoots out of what 
we call blowers. It is much more plentiful and dan- 
gerous in the soft-coal mines than it is here ; but one 
has to be careful about it here.” 

“ Every mine has a fire-boss,” said Owen. u He 
goes around every morning with a safety-lamp, and 
tests all the places where the fire-damp is likely to 
be. If he finds it safe to go in, he marks on the 
pillar with chalk. Here ’s one of his marks, now.” 

“ The safety -lamp” — Mr. Clarence took Lawrence’s 
lamp in his hand to illustrate — “ is constructed on 
the principle that flame will not pass through very 
small holes. It is simply a lamp surrounded by a 
fine wire gauze. This the gas-inspector, as we call 
him, — or fire-boss, as Owen calls him, — carries 
through the mines, holding it up under the roof where 
the fire-damp, which is lighter than common air, is 
always to be found, if anywhere. It goes to the top 
of the mines, just as water goes to the bottom, and 
stands in inverted puddles, where it can’t flow away. 
It is invisible, of course, till you light it. If the 
safety-lamp passes through it, it takes fire inside of 
the wire ; sometimes it puts the lamp out, and burns 
with a curious flame by itself, floating in the top of 
the gauze covering. The gas that gets in will burn. 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


169 


but the burning gas can’t get out ; it is caged. Some 
mines, especially some British coal-mines, are so gassy 
that the miners have to use safety-lamps altogether, 
and protect themselves still further, by very ingenious 
arrangements, against other deadly gases that fall to 
the bottom of the chambers.” 

“ Our men won’t work where there ’s fire-damp,” 
said Owen. “They’re afraid of it as they are of 
lightning. When they find it, they beat it down from 
the roof with old coats, or bags ; then the air-current 
carries it off.” 

“ I should like to see some of it burn,” said Law- 
rence. 

“ That ’s what a man said the other day. My father 
knew where there was just about a hatful of it in a 
little hollow of the roof, in an old air-course. So he 
says, ‘ You take the lamp, and put it up there, and 
you ’ll find some.’ So the man went feeling along 
with the lamp, till, the first thing he knew, the whole 
air before his eyes burst into a blaze; it knocked 
him down, and skinned his nose for him.” 

“A little hatful of gas expands like that ! ” cried 
Lawrence. 

“That ’s the danger,” said Owen. “ Suppose there is 
a foot of fire-damp up there now. You shall put up 
your lamp, look ! It catches, and you shall multiply 
it by seven ; it makes seven foot of solid blaze, look ! ” 

“ In the Mount Pleasant Mine, over here,” Owen 
went on, “ there was lately a terrible explosion. One 
morning the miners would n’t wait for the fire-boss, 

8 


170 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


and they went into a drift where there was gas. 
Eleven hoys and eleven mules got killed. The fire- 
damp bio wed ’em out of the drift, just like it had been 
a keg of powder. Then the air rushing back blowed 
’em in again. They were all torn to pieces, so you 
could n’t tell one from another.” 

“ Accidents are the constant dread of miners’ famL 
lies,” said Mr. Clarence. 

“ Just along here,” said Owen, as they travelled on, 
“ a boy got hurted the other day. He fell under a 
car. I was outside at the time. As soon as it got 
out that there had been an accident, you should have 
seen ! The way the women and children came run- 
ning to the shaft was something pitiful. There was 
hundreds there in a few minutes, wringing their hands, 
asking questions, — ‘ Who is it ? who is it ? ’ for every 
one thought it might be her own husband, or son, or 
father, till the boy was brought out.” 

“ Was he badly hurt ? ” 

“ He died in a few days. He was a poor woman’s 
only son. Mr. Lewis got up a subscription for her, 
and every miner gave something. It was very sad,” 
said Owen, his voice choking a little. “ Though some- 
times there’s a funny accident, look!” he added, 
making haste to be cheerful again. “ At the Mount 
Pleasant Mine they have a slope twelve hundred feet 
long. An engine draws up the cars out of the mines 
by a rope. The other day a boy wanted to go down 
and carry his father’s dinner. He pushed off a car, 
and got into it ; but he forgot to hook the rope to 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


171 


it first. The car went like lightning, after it got 
well started, run off the track, and smashed all to hits. 
But the hoy was n’t hurted scarcely any. When the 
men picked him up all he said was, — he stuttered a 
little, look, — ‘The engineer 1-1-let me down too 
f-f-fast!’” 

“ Look here, young man,” said Mr. Clarence. “ Your 
lamps are almost out.” 

“ So are we,” said Owen. “ Here ’s the mules’ gang- 
way. This is a new thing, too. Mr. Lewis had it 
cut through, because he thought if the shaft should 
get afire, the men would all perish, if they did n’t 
have some way to get out. Then it helps ventilation, 
and is handy for the mules. Before this was cut, 
every mule had to he brought down the shaft ; and 
there was always danger of the colts breaking loose 
and jumping out of the cars.” 

Lawrence’s lamp was burning so low that now the 
current of fresh air rushing down the gangway blew 
it out. The oil was getting low in Owen’s lamp too ; 
it scarcely lighted their way. 

u What if we had lost our lights somewhere away 
off in the mines ? ” said Lawrence. 

“ I did so once,” said Owen. “ I was on my way 
to the shaft, to take the last car up. I came to some' 
water so deep I did n’t like to walk through it. So I 
got some stones and threw in, to step on. As I was 
throwing the last one, I gave my head a toss, look ! 
and off went my lamp into the water. The mines 
were full of rats, and I was scared. I thought I might 


172 


AMONG THE COAL-MINERS. 


have to spend the night with ’em ; and I knew they 
were hungry enough to eat me. I began to travel. I 
did n’t mind stepping into the water then. I shouted, 
but could n’t make anybody hear. I thought the last 
men must be going up the shaft by that time ; and of 
course they would n’t think to ask for me. That was 
before this gangway was cut through. I felt my way, 
and got along as fast as T could. All to once I saw a 
light. It was Mr. Lewis ; he was around, looking 
after things, as he always is. So I went out with 
him, and bid good night to the rats.” 

“ How cool the fresh air is ! ” said Lawrence. “ I 
had n’t thought of the mines being so warm. We 
shall see daylight soon.” 

“No, you won’t,” said Owen, — “though you may 
see starlight.” 

He was right. The in-rushing draught of air grew 
colder and colder, as they went up through the mule- 
trampled mud of the low, narrow, ascending gangway ; 
and at last a faint light shone in at the entrance, which 
reminded Lawrence of the light Sindbad the Sailor 
saw at the end of his cavern. But it was not the 
light of day. The sun had gone down, and evening 
had come on, since they entered the mines. 

They emerged from the low-roofed passage, — which 
was supported by a cribbing of timber, beyond the 
natural roof of rock, — and came out in the shadow 
of a bleak hillside. There was a noise of murmuring 
waters, — a dark river rushed by at their feet. Lights 
twinkled in the city beyond, and above them the stars 
shone. 


CURIOSITIES OF THE MINES. 


173 


“Here’s the Lackawanna. We have come out on 
its banks,” said Owen. “ The colliery building, where 
you went into the shaft, is away up on the hill yonder.” 

“ I can’t tell you how much obliged I am to you, 
Owen ! ” said Lawrence. “ If you ever come to 
Massachusetts, I ’ll try and do as much for you. In 
the mean time, I want to give you something to 
remember me by. I have n’t anything but this 
pocket-knife; it’s small, but there’s first-rate stuff 
in the blades.” 

“ I shall not take that from you ! ” said Owen ; yet 
his hand opened involuntarily as the knife approached 
it, and closed again very quickly the moment it touched 
his palm, — for Owen was but a boy, and it was not 
in boy- nature to refuse such a gift. 

“Now I wish I could see the superintendent and 
thank him,” said Lawrence. 

But Owen said it was too late to find him at the 
office. Then Lawrence remembered his uncle, who 
he feared might be growing anxious about him ; and 
Mr. Clarence said they ought to be on their way back 
to the hotel. So Owen piloted them up the hill to 
the track of the street-cars, where they took leave of 
him, as if they three had been old friends, — Mr. 
Clarence also slipping something into' the willing 
Welsh palm. 

A street-car came along, and stopped for them ; and 
Lawrence, getting into it, with Mr. Clarence and Muff, 
rode back to the hotel, where the two boys found their 
respective uncles, just returned, stepping out of the 
buggy at the door. 


174 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


CHAPTER V. 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


I. 


LETTER-WRITING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 

HAT ’s the programme for this evening ? ” 



said Mr. Clarence, as he entered the reading- 


room of the hotel with his new friend after supper. 

With his cane under his arm, and a toothpick in 

his mouth, and his hat tipped gayly upon one side of 

his head, he was looking quite fresh and spirited, 

after the day’s adventures. So, too, was Lawrence, 

though his manner was by no means so light and airy 

as that of his vivacious friend. No one, to have seen 

them after their thorough washing and brushing and 

refreshment, would have suspected that they had so 

lately come out of a coal-mine. 

“ I think,” said Lawrence, “ I ’ll write a letter to 

my little coz, and tell her about the mines and the 

miners, and how I made your acquaintance.” 

“ Capital ! ” said Mr. Clarence. “ And I believe I ’ll 

write to my little coz, and tell her about you” 

So the young gentlemen got some note-paper and 

pens, and seated themselves at the table, the showy 

Mr. Clarence on one side and the more solid-looking 

© 

Lawrence opposite him, with a very large inkstand 


LETTER-WRITING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 175 

between them. They shoved the newspapers aside, 
dipped their pens (Mr. Clarence said it was like dip- 
ping into a well), and then dated their letters. 

“Scranton, October” wrote Mr. Clarence, with a 
characteristic flourish, and then stopped. “ What ’s 
the day of the month ? ” 

Lawrence told him, and in his turn inquired 
whether Pennsylvanians wrote the abbreviation of 
the name of their State Penn, or Pa. 

“We write it both ways; it is the same thing,” 
said Mr. Clarence ; adding, with a comical smile, 
“ Penn was the Pa of this State, you know ; and 
that ’s the reason of it, I suppose.” 

“ You made me laugh, and joggled me,” said Law- 
rence, throwing aside the sheet he had begun on, and 
taking another. 

Mr. Clarence began to flourish again, but stayed his 
hand before touching pen to paper. 

“ I never wrote to my little coz in my life. How 
do you start off ? ” 

“ My dear little Cousin Ethel, — that ’s my style,” 
said Lawrence, writing. 

“ Tip-top ! You are my Complete Letter- Writer. 
My — dear — little — Cousin — Eth — No ! hold on 1 
My cousin’s name is Jessie. Now I shall have to 
take a new sheet. My dear little Cousin Jessie, — 
that ’s all right ; a fine opening, as the miners say. 
Now which way do you carry your drift ? In other 
words, what next ? ” 

Lawrence scratched his ear and looked solemnly at 


m 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


the great inkstand. Mr. Clarence looked cheerfully 
at Lawrence. Then Lawrence read over the first line 
of his letter, — My dear little Cousin Ethel , — My dear 
little Cousin Ethel ,” — three or four times, — some- 
thing like a fisherman trolling his line for a bite, hop- 
ing that an idea would rise and hook itself on at the 
end of it. He could think of things enough to write, 
but could n’t get hold of just the right thing first. It 
may be added that the consciousness of his friend’s 
eyes upon him did not help him much. 

“ I ’ve a plan !” said Mr. Clarence at last. “ We ’ll 
both write the same things to our dear little cousins. 
You think of a sentence, and we ’ll both write it; 
then I ’ll think of one, and give you the benefit. 
Division of labor, you know.” 

“ Well, you think of a sentence first.” 

“ How ’s this ? My dear little, and so forth : I 
have to-day made the acquaintance of a splendid young 
fellow, — which means you.” 

“ But when I write it ’t will mean you,” said Law- 
rence, laughing. 

“ In that way we shall make an even thing of the 
compliments. I don’t object to being called a splen- 
did young fellow ; do you ? Have you got it down ? ” 

“ I ’ve written it capital fellow, — did you say 
splendid ? ” 

“ Never mind. Don’t change it. Only underline 
capital, so as to make it even. What ’s your sen- 
tence ? ” 

“ Mis pleasant face is before me while I write f sug- 
gested Lawrence. 


LETTER-WRITING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 177 

“ Excellent ! Don’t you see how admirably it 
works ? Only — will a slight amendment be in 
order ? ” 

“ Certainly.” 

“ Then permit me to suggest that we might employ 
a rather stronger epithet than pleasant fa,ce; might 
n’t we ? Suppose we make it handsome face ? Can 
you conscientiously ? ” 

Lawrence thought he could, but laughed so that he 
did not trust his hand to write for about a minute. 
Then he noticed that he had already written pleasant. 

“ Never mind, make it pleasant and handsome ; I 
think I can stand it,” said Mr. Clarence. “ He is here 
in company with his uncle , the distinguished — Here 
write in the names of our respective uncles. Now 
it ’s your turn again.” 

“ And while his uncle and mine are talking of the 
business that brought them here, in the corner — ” Law- 
rence went on. 

“ Brought them here in the comer ? ” queried Mr. 
Clarence. “ That don’t sound just right.” 

“I mean, while they are talking in the corner 
about the business that — But it ’s a bad sen- 
tence, any way. I ’m afraid I never can write a 
decent letter in this way.” 

“ Yes, you can. Push ahead ! Don’t you know 
the secret of fluent composition ? It ’s this : never 
stop to think. If you stop to think, you ’re lost.” 

Just then the little dog Muff jumped up on the 
table, and scrambling over the newspapers, stretched 

8* L 


178 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


his chin out on his fore-paws between the two friends, 
with his nose near the inkstand. 

“ I never can go on with that wagging tail before 
my eyes ! ” said Lawrence. 

“ In other words, you think our letter-writing will 
be curtailed,” said Mr. Clarence. 

“ I think Muff will be responsible for the final 
paws we have come to,” replied Lawrence, — for that 
is the way with young fellows : if one makes a pun 
his companion is sure to feel called upon to match it, 
if not with a fresh one, then with on£ not quite so 
fresh. 

“ Here, Muff ! hold our pens while we scratch our 
heads for ideas,” said Mr. Clarence. 

The dog took the pens by the handles, and held 
them with all the gravity of a lord chancellor, while 
the two letter-writers scratched industriously for the 
ideas that did not come. Soon Lawrence leaned his 
head on the table, pillowing it on his arms. The 
truth is, he was tired and sleepy. Mr. Clarence 
followed his example ; and there they sat, or rather 
lay, head to head, with their elbows squared at each 
other and with the inkstand and the lord chancel- 
lor between them. In three minutes they were fast 
asleep. 

At the end of about an hour Lawrence lifted his 
head with remarkable suddenness, opened his eyes 
very wide, and looked wildly about him. Mr. Clar- 
ence, with his head still down, and with cataracts of 
hair over his arms, was gently snoring. There was 


LETTER-WRITING UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 179 

nobody else in the room, except the lord chancellor, 
and he, too, had fallen into a snooze, with his muzzle 
on his paws, and with the pens beside it on the table. 

“ Hello ! ” said Lawrence. 

“ Hello ! ” said Mr. Clarence, starting up and toss- 
ing back the cascade of hair from his face, wide awake 
in an instant. 

“ I thought I was chasing rats in a coal-mine, and 
had got my face in a mule’s manger, and couldn’t 
get it out,” said Lawrence, feeling his neck, which 
had suffered. 

“ I did n’t imagine you were asleep ! ” said Mr. 
Clarence. “ I was n’t ; I ’ve been thinking what to 
write.” 

“ You were snoring, any way.” 

“ 0 no ! I make that noise in my head sometimes 
when I am thinking pretty hard. It ’s the rumbling 
of the mill, you know.” And the miller arranged his 
tangled hair. He was one of those persons who can 
never be convinced that they have slept on irregular 
occasions ; and Lawrence let the matter pass with a 
laugh. 

“ It ’s after nine ; you have been thinking over an 
hour. Where are our uncles ? ” 

“ Oh ! they ? They have walked out,” said Mr. 
Clarence, glancing about the room. “ This seems to 
be letter- writing under difficulties. Let ’s walk out 
too. I am as much refreshed as if I had had a nap. 
Come, Muff!” taking the lord chancellor under his 
arm. “ He ’s a dog of steady habits. Goes to bed 


180 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


early. The porter will take care of him while we go 
in search of adventures.” 

Muff having been disposed of, the young gentlemen 
walked out of the hotel arm in arm. It was a still, 
moonlight evening. The streets were almost deserted. 
Mr. Clarence looked up at the sky with a sentimental 
air, and said, pensively, — 

“ Behold the moon ! how she spreads her silver 
mantle over the silent world ! Did you ever think 
of it ? She has shone upon the earth just so thou- 
sands of nights before, and where were you and I ? 
She will shine just so again, a year from now, — ten 
years from now, — a hundred years from now, — and 
where will you and I be ? 0 moon ! I pause for a 

reply,” added Mr. Clarence, theatrically. 

He did not pause a great while, however (the moon 
evidently having no intention whatever of replying), 
but said presently, — 

“ I ’ll tell you where let ’s go ! To the iron- works ! 
— to see the blast-furnaces by night ! ” 


II. 

THE BLAST-FURNACES BY NIGHT. 

Lawrence eagerly accepted the suggestion. They 
walked briskly up the street, and soon came in sight 
of the flaming furnace throats, and of the black 
figures of workmen passing to and fro before them. 

The furnaces of the Lackawanna Iron- Works are 


THE BLAST-FURNACES BY NIGHT. 


181 


built on the side of the steep right bank of Roaring 
Brook. They are large and tall ; their immense 
foundations are laid in the foot of the bank, while 
their throats roar and flame over its summit fifty feet 
above. It was at that elevation, on a sort of high, 
dim platform, that the lads saw the human figures 
defined against the glow of the fires. 

“ They ’re feeding the furnaces up there,” said Mr. 
Clarence. 

The boys found a cart-track which took them up a 
short slope to an open shed, covering great piles of 
what appeared to be stones and rocks and anthracite 
coal. A gang of laborers were at work shovelling up 
these materials and wheeling them off in small iron 
carriages. The rocks in some of the piles were in 
rough blocks, just as they came from the quarries ; 
but in others they seemed to have been broken up 
into sizes suitable for making macadamized roads. It 
was from these latter piles, and from the piles of coal, 
that the carriages were filling ; and the lads, watching 
the men, saw that they wheeled their loads directly 
into the glare of the furnace throats, which lighted 
up the scene. 

“ This is certainly stone ! ” said Lawrence, picking 
up a fragment from a pile where a man was shovelling. 

“ Sure it is,” said the man, — “ limestone.” 

“ What do you do with it ? ” 

“ Cast it in with the charge.” 

“ What is the charge ? ” 

“ Go with that carriage, and you will see.” 


182 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


Another laborer coming with an empty carriage 
left it, and, taking the one the shovellers had just 
tilled, wheeled it out across the platform. The lads 
followed, advancing into the terrible heat and glare 
of the furnace throats. 

The furnaces were four in number ; but only their 
tops were here visible, — huge, funnel-shaped necks, 
somewhat higher than a man’s head, ranged along 
the edge of the platform, above the roof of the casting- 
house which enclosed the bodies of the furnaces below. 
There were iron doors in the*sides of the funnels ; into 
these the contents of the carriages were cast ; and 
through these, as also through the circular openings 
in the funnel-tops, roared the flames, as if spouted 
from nose and mouth by so many young volcanoes. 

Lawrence was at first almost terrified at the posi- 
tion in which he found himself. He looked down 
into the fiery gulf into which the man dumped his 
load with a loud clang of the iron carriage striking 
the iron plates. There the furnace enlarged like a 
yawning crater below its comparatively narrow throat. 
At first he could see only an abyss of many-colored, 
dazzlingly beautiful flames ; but presently he could 
distinguish, heaped high in the midst of them, and 
only a few feet lower than the charging-plates on 
which he stood, the top of a dark mound. It was 
composed of the freshly dumped materials from the 
piles under the shed. Around and over them, and 
through every chink between the lumps, the flames 
swept and darted and surged. 


CHARGING THE FURNACES 







184 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


Another laborer came, and dumped a carriage-load 
of coal — great lumps of anthracite — into the throat. 
Then a third came with a load of what seemed an- 
other kind of stone. Then the door was closed. 

“ But this is n’t stone ! ” cried Lawrence, seizing a 
lump, and retreating with it from the intolerable glare 
of the fire. “ This must be the ore.” 

“ Ore it certainly is,” said Mr. Clarence. “ Ore, 
limestone, coal, — they all go into the furnace to- 
gether, as you see.” 

“ How, then, is the iron ever separated from the 
earthy matters?” said Lawrence, puzzled and aston- 
ished. “ I should think it would be full of ashes and 
dirt. And what is the use of the limestone ? ” 

“ Perhaps we can find some person who will tell 
us,” said Mr. Clarence. “ But look here ! ” 

They had retreated to the edge of the platform. 
They were on a spot which overlooked the roofs of 
buildings below, and the firelit waters of Boaring 
Brook pouring over a high dam, in a beautiful cas- 
cade, and rushing along their rocky bed under steep 
ledges, in light and shadow, at the base of the hill. 
Surrounding this bright flame-picture was the still, 
moonlit night, silvering peacefully the country and 
the town. Lawrence thought he had never looked 
upon so strikingly wild and picturesque a scene, and 
he stood gazing at it wonderingly until Mr. Clarence 
pulled him away. 

“ Ask one of these men about the limestone,” said 
Mr. Clarence, as they returned ter the shovellers at 

X 


THE BLAST-FURNACES BY NIGHT. 


185 


one of the piles. And he himself put the question in 
his polite way. 

“ The loimestone ? ” said the man, staring at him. 
“ Why, we could n’t do onytliing, mon, but for the 
loimestone.” 

“ But what ’s the use of it ? ” 

“ The use of it ? The use, when we could n’t get a 
blast without it ! It ’s loike ahsking the use of the 
air ye breathe.” 

“ I know something of the use of the air we breathe : 
it gives oxygen to the blood,” said Lawrence. " Now 
, what does the limestone do to the furnace ? ” 

“ Mayhap it gives what ye call oxengin to the fur- 
nace loike,” said the man, grinning with his hard face 
over his short stump of a pipe ; and he returned 
to his shovelling with the air of one who had ren- 
dered a reason. 

“ I can tell you what you want to know,” said 
another laborer, leaning on his shoveL “ The lime- 
stone physics the furnace.” But that was hardly a 
satisfactory explanation. 

Another said, “ The lime helps the flow of the iron.” 

A fourth said, “ It makes the flux.” 

“ No doubt, my friends,” said Mr. Clarence. “ But 
there ’s more in it than all that. We ’ll find out by 
and by. Let ’s take a look at the boilers.” 

There were twenty of these, and they were ranged 
in order over an extensive fire-chamber, a door of 
which was opened by a good-natured attendant, that 
the visitors might look in. No fuel was visible, but 


186 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


billows of flame filled the space, undulating far away 
out of sight, under the boilers, which they enveloped. 

“ Where do the flames come from ? ” Lawrence 
asked, surprised at the beautiful display. 

“ From the furnaces,” said the man. “ They are a 
part of the waste heat.” 

“ Then it don’t all come out of the furnace throats ? ” 

“ Only a little of it. Below the throats are flues’ 
which you can’t see. There are pipes from the flues 
that bring some of the heat here. The rest of it goes 
to the hot-blast ovens.” 

“ What are those ? ” 

" The chambers where the cold air is heated before 
it is driven into the furnaces. It would n’t do to 
drive in such a quantity of air cold.” 

“It would cool the furnaces,” suggested Lawrence. 

“ Besides,” added Mr. Clarence, “ cold air don’t 
burn like hot air. Hot air strikes the gases, and 
makes instantaneous combustion. But cold air has 
to get partly heated before it burns much ; and they 
could n’t begin to get so intense a heat witli it.” 

" But I don’t understand yet the use of the boilers,” 
said Lawrence. 

“ Why,” said Mr. Clarence, “ the boilers drive the 
engines, that drive the fan, that drives the air, that 
drives the fires and makes the blast. They are blast- 
furnaces, you know.” 

“ Where they make flint-glass,” replied Lawrence, 
“ they have tall chimneys, by which they get draught 
enough without any such apparatus.” 


THE BLAST-FURNACES BY NIGHT. 


187 


He had no idea of the power of the blast until he 
went to look at the engines. There were four, of one 
thousand horse-power each. The immense fly-wheels 
(“ They regulate the motion of the machinery, you 
know,” said Mr. Clarence) almost completely filled the 
space between the floor and the roof of the building. 
The weight of the largest of them, the engineer said, 
was forty thousand pounds. The silence and swift- 
ness of these huge, whirling wheels was something 
wonderful. “ And is n’t it curious to think of that 
quiet man with the newspaper being the master of all 
this tremendous machinery ? ’’ said Lawrence. 

“ Yes ; man is little, but he is the trump-card on 
this planet,” replied Mr. Clarence. 

The air was forced by the engines through huge 
iron pipes, — “ blowing cylinders,” the engineer called 
them, — and such was the power of the blast that 
it entered the furnaces under a pressure of eight or 
nine pounds to the square inch. 

“ Think of a tall chimney making a draught equal 
to that ! ” said Mr. Clarence. “ A chimney would 
have to be powerful enough to lift itself up by the 
straps of its boots ! Iron is n’t glass ; and you see the 
smelting furnace has to be constructed on an entirely 
different principle. Now let ’s go down to the casting- 
house.” 


188 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


III. 

THE CASTING-HOUSE. 

Half-way down the hillside, they passed a large 
reservoir of water, its still surface lit up like a little 
lake, by the furnace fires above. Farther on they 
descended a steep flight of steps to the roadway 
between the base of the hill and Eoaring Brook. 
Along this road was laid an iron track for cars, lead- 
ing into the casting-house. 

This was a spacious, high-raftered, depot-like build- 
ing, open on the side of the brook. On the other side 
were massive piers of masonry supporting the great 
furnaces. In the shadowy background could be seen 
the iron pipes that brought down the hot-air blast. 
In front of each furnace was an enclosed space filled 
with sand, — something like the arena of a circus, 
except that it was divided into two “floors” by a 
passage-way running down the centre. One of the 
floors in each arena appeared to be ready for casting, 
being laid out in regular, smooth channels, as if care- 
ful impressions of a gigantic gridiron had been taken 
in the deep, fine sand. The other floors were either 
in a tumbled condition, just as the iron of the last 
casting, when taken up, had left them, or laborers 
were engaged in laying down in them the wooden 
patterns by which the gridiron impressions were made. 
The sand was shovelled upon these, and packed about 
them ; and it seemed to be just moist enough to 


THE CASTING-HOUSE. 


189 


retain the mould, in clean, handsome shape, after they 
were removed. 

“ Those are the pig-beds,” said Mr. Clarence. “ Of 
course you have heard of iron pigs ! Well, this is 
where they are littered. Here are, in each of these 
floors, eight or ten pig-beds. To each bed there is 
what they call a sow. That ’s the main channel that 
runs across the floor. You ’ll see presently how that 
nourishes the pigs,” — for Mr. Clarence saw by the 
signs that the men were preparing to cast. 

A gang of a dozen or more were lounging about the 
hearth of one of the furnaces, leaning on iron bars, or 
sitting on benches, as if waiting for something. The 
boys went up where they were, and asked how long 
before they were going to cast. 

“ In a few minutes,” said one. “ We are just wait- 
ing for the fellers to come down with the word from 
up above. You ’d better keep back on the far side. 
You ’ll see better there, and be out of danger.” 

The boys accordingly withdrew to the foot of the 
arena, on the side of the brook, — Mr. Clarence smil- 
ing at the idea of danger, but saying, airily, “We shall 
be out of the way, though.” 

They turned to look at the brook ; and Lawrence 
noticed that there were cavernous openings in the 
steep ledges opposite, into which the waters rushed. 

“ Those are old coal-openings,” said Mr. Clarence ; 
“ for here was a good coal-mine once. But it got on 
fire, and burnt I don’t know how long, till they turned 
the brook into it and put it out.” 


190 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


The “ fellers ” had now come down from “ up above 
and there were forty or fifty men in the casting-house. 
Then one who had been leaning on an iron bar grasped 
it with both hands, and began to drive it with sharp 
clicks against the hearth of the first furnace. 

“ He is drilling out the clay that stops the iron,” 
said Mr. Clarence. “ You ’ll see it spirt soon ! ” 

Just then a furious roaring sound filled the building. 

“ That is the blast ; it is let off from the furnace 
when they cast.” 

At the same time sparks began to fly, and dazzling 
spatters of molten metal followed each stroke of the 
drill. 

“ It ’s coming now ! ” cried Mr. Clarence, while 
Lawrence stood thrilled with expectation. 

At the word out gushed the terrible molten torrent. 
The men were active and alert about it in an instant, 
shouting and springing to and fro, eager to guide and 
control the fearful flood. Some threw shovelfuls of 
sand upon it, to check its too rapid rush, while it 
poured down a channel prepared for it and began to 
fill the pig-beds in the upper part of the floor. It 
filled the mould of the “ sow ” first, then flowed down 
into the pigs, filling one after the other as it crept 
along. As soon as one pig-bed was filled, gates of 
clay, called “ shutters,” placed across the channel lead- 
ing to it, were suddenly driven down by men with 
heavy sledge-hammers, and the fiery stream was 
turned into the next sow below. There was just 
slope enough to the floor to give a sufficient fall to 


THE CASTING-HOUSE. 






192 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


the running metal. Sand, as I have said, was thrown 
upon it, and the gates were driven down when it came 
too fast ; and when it moved too sluggishly in any 
direction it was helped along by means of long, thin 
strips of wood or slender poles, which the men drew 
before it, very much as a child encourages a stream 
of water-drops by leading it with his finger. The 
poles were often on fire, and were as often quenched 
in the moist sand. 

So floor after floor was cast, three of the furnaces 
being tapped in quick succession. The streams of 
molten metal lighting up the night, the sparks flying 
off from them and shooting hither and thither in lit- 
tle explosive showers, the flaming poles, the heat, the 
glare, the deafening roar of the blast, the animation 
of the workmen, their swift movements and loud cries, 
and finally the floors covered with enormous red- 
hot gridirons, and the sight of men walking quickly 
but unconcernedly over them, — all combined to 
make up a scene of the most vivid interest to the 
mind of Lawrence. 

As soon as a floor was cast, sand was shovelled all 
over the beds of glowing metal ; then water from a 
hose-pipe was thrown on copiously, filling the air 
with clouds of steam. Then men, stripped for the 
work, — naked to their waists, with clogs on their 
feet, — went on to the floors with sledges and levers, 
with which they broke up the iron while it was yet 
soft, separating the pigs from the sows, and dividing 
the sows into pig-shaped bars. (“ Though I don’t see 


THE CASTING-HOUSE. 


193 


why they were ever called pigs/’ Lawrence wrote 
afterwards to his little Cousin Ethel. “ They don’t 
look at all like young porkers, but are just rough 
pieces of cast-iron as big as my leg, and almost as 
tall, when they are stood up, as I am.”) 

“ I should think you would suffocate,” Mr. Clarence 
said to one of these men, who emerged from the sti- 
fling cloud and heat of one of the floors, and came out 
for a breath of air where the boys stood. 

“ I am used to it. I shall put all that iron on cars 
before midnight.” 

“ How many pigs are there on that floor ? ” 

“ About three hundred. They weigh from a hun- 
dred to a hundred and twenty-five pounds apiece. 
As soon as they cool a little, I begin to handle 
them.” 

“ Do you work all night ? ” 

“ Ho ; my time is up when that job is done. There 
are two sets of hands ; when this set goes off another 
conies on.” 

“ How often do you cast ? ” 

“ Every six hours, day and night.” 

“ How long after the ore is put in at the charging- 
doors above before it comes out melted iron ? ” Mr. 
Clarence inquired. 

“ Three days,” said the man. 

“ And how much does one of those furnaces hold ? ” 

“ Six hundred tons of stock.” 

“ That means coal, ore, and limestone, all together,” 
said Mr. Clarence. “ Six hundred tons, my lad ! ” 


194 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


and he tapped Lawrence on the shoulder with his 
cane. “ Can your glass-works beat that ? ” 

“ They are drawing off the iron again ! ” said Law- 
rence, seeing another stream of fiery liquid gushing 
from the furnace. 

“ That ’s the cinder,” said the man. “ It comes 
from another opening higher up than the tapping- 
hole for the iron.” 

“ Let ’s go up and look at it,” said Mr. Clarence. 

They drew near and saw the dazzling stream pour 
down, through a channel prepared for it, to a spout, 
where it fell into a flaring pan as large as a cart-box, 
which had been brought up on a car, along a branch 
of the railway track, to receive it. When the pan was 
nearly full, the flow was stopped, and the car, loaded 
with the glowing mass, was drawn away by a mule. 

Observing a person who seemed to be a sort of 
overseer, Lawrence asked him what the cinder was, 
and what it was good for. 

“ It is good for nothing. It is the slag.” 

“What is it made of? Ashes, for one thing, I 
suppose.” 

“ Yes ; but the limestone makes a good part of it.” 

“ Now,” said Mr. Clarence, in his polite way, “ I 
see we have found an intelligent man ; and perhaps he 
will kindly inform us what the limestone is used for.” 

“ I can tell you a little. Do you know anything 
about the construction of a blast-furnace ? ” and, the 
boys confessing their ignorance, the speaker con- 
tinued : “ It is built up of fire-clay inside that solid 


THE CASTING-HOUSE. 


195 


stone-work, which is made very solid and strong, and 
bolted together, as you see, in order to support such a 
tremendous pressure. The furnace is shaped some- 
thing like an egg standing on its big end. It is fifty 
feet high, from the hearth to the throat. It is eigh- 



ty throat ; 6, b , flues ; c, c, boshes ; d, d, tweers ; e, e, flux /, /, iron in the 
hearth. 

teen feet broad in the boshes, — that is, through the 
thickest part of the egg. The materials thrown in 
have room to swell, as the heat expands them, and 


196 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


they settle down into the larger part. The hearth is 
the chamber, or reservoir, in the bottom of the fur- 
nace for receiving the melted metal and flux. Just 
over the hearth are the tweers ; step here, and I will 
show you where the blast is driven in.” 

“ Tweers ! what a word ! It must he from the 
French tuyere , which means a pipe,” observed Mr. 
Clarence. 

"Very likely, for it is a tapering aperture that 
receives the blast from the ends of these pipes, and 
carries it into the furnace. There are six of these 
tweers ; and it is through these we blow the fires.” 
And the man proceeded to explain the operation 
going on within the furnace. 

“ Crude iron ore,” said he, " is always more or less 
oxidized; that is, it contains a quantity of oxygen. 
It also contains a good deal of earthy matter. Now, 
in the furnace, the ore soon begins to soften, and to 
part with its oxygen, which unites with the carbon 
of the coal, and with the oxygen of the air-blast helps 
make the fire. At the same time the ore absorbs 
carbon from the coal, which gives it the quality of 
cast-iron. The ore does not actually melt until it 
almost reaches the hearth. It is in a sort of pasty 
condition, when it comes within the direct influence 
of the blast; then it flows at once. The limestone 
begins to flow first, and it helps the flow of the iron. 
Then the iron, being the heaviest of all the materials 
in the furnace, goes to the bottom of the hearth, and 
everything else floats on top of it.” 


THE CASTING-HOUSE. 


197 


“ I see now how it is separated from the ashes and 
other materials ! ” cried Lawrence. “ It is by its own 
weight.” 

“ That is it. But there is another thing ; we have 
n’t got through with the limestone yet. The melted 
lime makes the flux, which acts like a filter to the 
iron. The metal is at the bottom, and the flux floats 
on top of it, like oil upon water. Now every particle 
of iron that melts and comes down has to pass through 
this flux. If you could look in, you would see the 
melted metal trickling through it in drops, or little 
streams, something like rain falling through the air. 
The lime takes out the earthy impurities of the iron, 
and gathers the coal-ashes as they come down. To 
keep the flux in good condition, we have to draw it off, 
as it becomes loaded with impurities, and make room 
for fresh flux to fill its place. Here it comes out, as 
you see, in what we call slag, or cinder. The flux has 
still another use. Covering the melted metal as it does, 
it protects it from the continued direct action of the 
blast, which would soon oxidize it again, and make a 
different quality of iron.” 

“ How much pig-iron do you make here in a year ? ” 

“ A thousand tons a week, — over fifty thousand 
tons a year.” 

“ Where does your ore come from ? ” 

“From New Jersey. It is dug out of the moun- 
tains, where it lies in beds all the way from two feet 
to thirty-five feet thick.” 

Lawrence thought he would like to visit the iron- 


198 


AMONG THE IRON-MEN. 


mines. His curiosity was also excited with regard to 
the processes by which this coarse pig-iron was after- 
wards converted into all the various shapes and quali- 
ties of cast-iron, wrought-iron, and steel. But Mr. 
Clarence said, “ I suspect our affectionate uncles 
would like to hear something about us by this time ” ; 
and, thanking their new acquaintance, while they took 
leave of him, they hastened back to the hotel. 
























































- 






























Profile Plan ( showing the ship as if sawed through the centre, from stem to stern). 



. Fore Hatch. 2. Forecastle 3. Store-room. 4. Galley. 5 State-room. 6. Main Hatch 7. After Hatch. 8. State-room 9 . 

. Captain's State-room. (Starboard side.) 10. Dining-room. 11. Fore Mast. 12. Main Mast. 13. Mizzen Mast 



THE SHIP-YARD. 


199 


CHAPTEE VI. 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDEES. 


I. 


THE SHIP- YARD. 



HE next morning the two friends parted, Mr. 


Clarence going off with his uncle down the 
valley, and Lawrence returning with the doctor to 
their home in Massachusetts. 

But the friendship thus formed was destined to 
continue ; and a few weeks later we find Lawrence 
in Massachusetts, writing wonderfully long letters to 
Mr. Clarence in Pennsylvania. Having obtained from 
the writer authentic copies of these, we are enabled to 
finish the story of his adventures in his own words. 

Here I am again (he wrote) ; and I am going to 
tell you about some of the things I have seen since I 
said good by to you that morning on the cars, — for 
this is what you made me promise I would do. I am 
not much used to writing letters, as maybe you remem- 
ber ; but my uncle says if I write just as I would talk, 
I shall do well enough, — only it must be about 
something I am interested in. 

Well, what I am interested in just now is ships ! 
You see, my uncle sent me over to East Boston the 


200 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


other day to find a man that moved away from here, 
and owed him a bill, — and I was to have the money 
if I collected it, which would be right handy about 
Christmas time, you know. But the man was n’t at 
home ; and while I was waiting for him, I thought I 
would take a stroll down by the water. It was a 
splendid day, — just cool enough; there was a fine 
breeze blowing, and sailing vessels and ferry-boats 
were passing in fine style ; there was Charlestown and 
the Navy- Yard over opposite ; and on the shore, right 
down before my eyes, was the skeleton of a big ship. 
I started for that. It was on the farther side of a 
great yard between the street and the water, — a yard 
full of great timbers and piles of lumber, and men at 
work chopping, measuring, hauling, and lifting ; there 
was also a saw-mill and a sort of blacksmith shop. 

I looked into the office as I passed the gate. It 
was a little square room, with two or three men in it 
talking earnestly over some drawings and figures on 
the desk, and a number of handsome ship-models, all 
nicely polished, fastened to the walls. Then there 
were framed pictures of steamers and ships under 
full sail. The room had quite a nautical look. I 
wanted to stop and ask about the. models, but the 
men were busy, and so I walked on down into the yard. 

I don’t think you ever saw more chips on an acre 
of ground ! There were old chips rotting in the dirt; 
fresh new chips just split off from the logs ; and chips 
in every stage of youth and old age between. There 
was a wagon loading up with chips ; there were 


THE SHIP-YARD. 


201 


women filling baskets with chips ; there was a great 
staring sign, — “ no chips taken from this yard ” ; 
and a stick of timber, which a horse was dragging off, 
went ploughing its way through dirt and chips. Burn 
it over, and could n’t you raise corn and beans in that 
yard ? I bet you ! 

I stopped to watch the men at work. One was 
hewing out a stick of timber to something like this 
shape. As he looked up and nodded at me, I asked 



him what that stick was for. “ That ? That ’s a fut- 
tick,” said he. “ What ’s a futtick ? ” said I. “ A 
part of a frame,” said he. “ What ’s a frame ? ” said 
I. “ A frame is a rib, — what you would call a pair 
of ribs. These timbers we are hewing out here, 
they ’re all for frames,” said he. “ They are different 
shapes ; no two exactly alike ; and they are all cut 
out, just as you see, with the axe. We have these 
marks to go by.” 

Then I noticed the man who was making the 
marks. He had some thin boards sawed in just the 
shape he wanted the face of the timbers cut. He 
laid one of these flat on a hewed stick, and marked 
around the edges with a red pencil. Some of these 
boards — they are called moulds — were very long 
and curved only a little. Others were shorter, and 
9 * 


202 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


curved very much more. Some were curved like a 
bow ; others were almost straight, being curved only 
a little at one end. As there are some hundreds of 
timbers in the side of a big ship, and every timber 
has to have a separate mould, and as some of these 
moulds are made of two or three boards pieced to- 
gether, you see it must take a good many boards, as 
well as a good deal of gumption, just to get the pat- 
terns ready, before even a timber is touched. Then 
here is another thing. Besides the shape given to 
the stick by the mould, which determines its up-and- 
down curve in the ribs of the ship, it must be hewed 
just right to fit in with the others, and make its part 
of the curved lines running lengthwise along the ves- 
sel’s side. So most of the timbers have to be bevelled 
more or less. All the bevel angles come marked on 
a board, called a “ bevel-board,” and the carpenter 
takes off those, one by one, with his bevel instru- 
ment, and marks them on the ends of the sticks, for 
the choppers. And he must be careful to get the 
right bevel on the right stick. It is as if every bone 
in your body had to be designed and shaped sepa- 
rately, before you were put together ; and that makes 
ship-building something wonderful, don’t it ? Though 
it is really the pieces of only one side that the archi- 
tect has anything to do with. He designs the ribs on 
your right side, for instance. The moulds for one of 
these are just turned over, and the bevels reversed, to 
make the corresponding rib on your left side. Under- 
stand ? 


THE SHIP-YARD. 


203 


Your ribs are all of oak, as you must know. The 
best qualities of white or live oak are preferred, to 
build you stanch and strong. And the timber must 
be cut when the sap is out of it, and well seasoned 
afterwards, or you are liable to rot. 

The most of the timber used in this yard, one of 
the men told me, comes from Virginia and Maryland. 
It is n’t quite so good always as our Northern white 
oak, but it is cheaper. Oak in New England is get- 
ting to be a scarce article ; but, since the war, whole 
forests in Virginia are bought up cheap, so that the 
expense of it here amounts to but little more than the 
cost of cutting and shipping it. Crews go out from 
our ports and spend the winter getting timber when 
the sap is down in the roots. They take out their 
oxen and cows, and sometimes their wives and babies, 
and build huts in the Southern forests, and have a 
merry time of it. Often they take out the moulds of 
a ship, and cut all her timbers into shape for building, 
on the spot ; so that when they are landed here they 
are all ready to go into the frames. Think of a stick 
fitted there in the woods for a particular part of a 
particular rib of a particular ship to be built months 
afterwards, hundreds of miles away ! There seemed 
to me something romantic about the voyages of 
these crews ; and I thought I should like to go out 
with them, and spend a winter in the Virginia 
forests. But the chopper who told me this, and who 
lias been out often, said he guessed I would find it 
hard. 


204 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


They don’t work much in these ship -yards during 
the winter, he told me. It is all out-door work. The 
storms interfere with it, and the snow is a great bother. 
“ Sometimes you go out in the morning,” he said, 
“ and find every timber in the yard covered ; and the 
stagings about the ship will be all slippery with snow 
and ice, — for it is n’t often a common vessel is built 
under a house, like those over at the Navy-Yard.” I 
looked across and could see the immense ship-houses 
standing with their ends towards the water. “ This 
ship,” said he, “ won’t be complete before December ; 
and a good deal of snow will have to be shovelled for 
her, before ever she is launched.” 


II. 

BUILDING THE SHIP. 

I was in a hurry to see how the frames were put 
together ; so I followed one of the timbers, which a 
horse was hauling away, and soon came to a high 
platform, to the top of which it was drawn up an in- 
clined plane, by means of a rope and pulley. 

I went up with it, stepping on cleats nailed across 
the planks on one side of the plane. Beyond was the 
half-finished skeleton of the ship that was building. 
The stern was towards the water, and the other end 
of the keel came up even with the platform. The 
keel was an immense stick of timber, — or rather sev- 
eral sticks pieced together, — perfectly straight and 


BUILDING THE SHIP. 


205 


nearly two hundred feet long. It was laid on piles 
of blocks ; and it slanted up a little from the end to- 
wards the water, so as to give the ship the proper 
inclination for launching. If the keel was laid level, 
she would n’t slide off, you know. 

The first thing I noticed was that the ribs were 
complete on both sides to the tops, as far as they were 
built at all. As I had seen a picture of a ship’s ribs 
built up a little way all round, before the upper pieces 
were joined on, I had expected to see something like 
that here ; but I learned that only small boats are made 
in that way, — though even large vessels used to be, 
fifty or a hundred years ago. 

There the great ribs were, complete to about mid- 
ships, and supported on the sides by two little groves 
of props. The part of the keel towards the platform 
was a naked piece of timber, — like half of your 
backbone waiting for the ribs to be fitted to it. 

There were a dozen men on the platform ; and now 
I saw what they were doing. They took the timbers 
as they came up from the yard, and put them to- 
gether in a frame shaped like a big letter tl- This was 
laid flat on the platform, with the bottom of the U 
toward the ship. The position it was designed for, 
near the middle of the keel, where the vessel is broad- 
est and the bottom flattest, gave it its U shape. Near 
one of the ends it would have been shaped more like 
a V 

This, then, was what the men called a “ frame.” It 
was composed of fifteen timbers ; and it measured 


206 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


thirty-six feet across, and twenty-four in depth. All 
these timbers have particular names. They are in 
two tiers, one laid over the other, on the platform, — 
“ breaking joints,” as the carpenters say; you know, — 
the ends of two sticks in one tier meet at about the 
middle of a stick in the other tier, to which they are 
bolted. First, across the bottom, is the “ floor-tim- 
ber ” ; then two “ naval-timbers ” ; then a first, sec- 
ond, third, and fourth " futtock ” (not “ futtick ” as the 
man said), in each arm of the frame ; then a “ stan- 
chion ” and a “ top-timber ” finish the arm. After 
the timbers were got into place, holes were bored, and 
long iron bolts driven through both tiers, four men 
driving one bolt, their four sledge-hammers revolving 
in the air and hitting the iron one after another, in 
complete time, making a lively scene. 

When the frame was finished, pulley-ropes were 
made fast to it, and it was drawn off the platform 
down towards the ship, sliding flat along the keel, and 
a couple of planks were laid to support it, one on each 
side. When the bottom of the frame was near the 
standing frames, — the exact place for it being marked 
on the keel, — pulley-ropes were attached to the tops 
of the U, and it was raised right up into position, as 
neatly as anything you ever saw. The pulleys were 
worked by a capstan back in the yard. While this 
was getting into place, another frame was going 
together on the platform. 

I climbed up into the half-finished skeleton, and 
looked around. On one side stood a twenty -foot lad- 


BUILDING THE SHIP. 


207 


der, with a man on the upper rounds, fastening the 
last frame to the others with a cleat. His head did 
not reach the top. The ship was still broader than 
she was deep ; the bottom timbers forming an almost 
level floor for several yards each side of the keel. As 
I walked towards the stern she grew narrower, till 
Anally the ribs crooked right up sharply from the 
keel, and there was no floor at all. 

From the stern I looked out on the water, into 
which she was to be some day launched. The “ ways ” 
were already laid for her there, — timbers on blocks, 
like the two rails of a railroad, sloping down into the 
waves that were dashing over them. 

The “ stern-post ” was not yet raised. It lay on a 
platform at the lower end of the keel, with the “ tran- 
soms,” or cross-timbers, already framed to it. This 
“post” is one of the strongest and most important tim- 
bers in the ship. It stands upright on the end of the 
keel, into which it is mortised. There is a groove cut 
in the back side of it, for the rudder-post to turn in. 
All the converging lines of the ship’s under sides are 
brought into it with a graceful sweep. The transoms, 
and the stern-frame built out from them, make the 
broad and high part of the stern. 

The frames in the bottom of the ship were set four 
inches apart. The two sets of timbers in each frame 
were bolted close together at the bottom ; but up on 
the sides I noticed that pains had been taken to make 
an open space between them, — a wide crack. I asked 
a workman what that was for. 


208 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


“ Why, you see,” said he, “ a ship has to he pre- 
served like so much corned beef or pork.” 

“ How so ? ” said I. 

“ She has to be salted down,” said he. 

“ Salted down ! ” said I, thinking he must be joking. 

“ To be sure,” said he. “ This ’ere ship’s timbers 
would last a hundred years and more, if ’t wa’n’t for 
the dry rot. That ’s the ruination of vessels. It ain’t 
like common rot ; that goes to work in an honest 
kind of a way on the outside. Dry rot is sly ; it 
begins its mischief on the inside of a timber, and 
turns it all to a kind of dry, crumbly powder, before 
ever you suspect it ’s there. I ’ve seen a stick com- 
pletely eaten up by it, while the painted outside 
remained as slick and han’some as ever.” 

I asked what occasioned the rot. 

“ That ’s more ’n I know,” says he. “ Some say it ’s 
a vegetable growth, — a sort of fungus , I believe they 
call it. The seeds are supposed to be in the sap of 
the tree, though I don’t believe that, for timber that ’s 
been preserved hundreds of years will be attacked 
finally by the rot in certain situations. The planks 
we bend on to the bows and after-parts of the ship’s 
sides have to be steamed ; and it ’s found the dry rot 
don’t attack them. These bottom timbers are pro- 
tected by salt water, — that kills the rot, — but the 
upper timbers don’t get the benefit of that, and so we 
salt ’em down. Them openings between ’em are all 
filled in with salt, when the frames are covered. It 
will take a hundred and eighty hogsheads of salt to 
salt down this ’ere ship.” 


BUILDING THE SHIP. 


209 


That astonished me. Just think of it ; a ship car- 
ries a small cargo of salt in the crevices between her 
ribs ! The man hewed away a spell with his adz (he 
was smoothing the insides of the frames for the planks 
to be put on ; he called the work "dubbing”), then 
looked up again and said, — 

"The kind of cargo a ship carries makes all the 
difference in the world with the rot. She is lucky if 
she gets a cargo of salt for her first voyage. Spice — 
you would hardly believe it — is about the worst 
thing. I’ve known a new ship put into the spice 
trade to rot out in three years.” 

I looked over into a neighboring ship-yard, and 
saw the skeleton of a vessel nearly complete. So I 
thought I would go and see what was the next thing 
to be done. They were putting the keelson into her, 
— kelson the men call it, — a son of the keel, I suppose. 
It is a set of timbers inside the frames, running the 
length of the ship, corresponding with the keel out- 
side. There were three courses of timbers, sixteen 
inches square, laid one on another, and making a pile 
(16 X 3 = 48 inches) four feet high. These rest- 
ed on the floor-timbers, which were eighteen inches 
thick. The keel under them was two feet. On the 
bottom of the keel was a five-inch plank "shoe.” 
This made a " backbone ” to the ship almost eight 
feet through ! I must n’t forget the " sister keel- 
sons,” — two strong timbers laid one on each side of 
the true keelson. Is n’t there a backbone for you ! 

I asked the carpenter who gave me these figures 


210 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


what the " shoe ” was for. “ It is a protection to the 
keel,” he said. “ If a ship strikes a rock, the shoe 
takes the brunt of the stroke, and often she may he 
got off by the shoe parting from the keel, and letting 
her slide.” 

They were putting on the top timbers of the keel- 
son, and fastening them with holts driven clear through 
into the keel. Such holts ! They were not driven hy 
sledge-hammers, but hy a sort of pile-driver, worked 



BOLTING THE KEELSON. 


BUILDING THE SHIP. 


211 


by four men, who drew up the heavy iron weight by 
a pulley, and let it fall on the end of the bolt, which 
a fifth man guided. 

In the yard some men were hewing out a rudder- 
post, — an immense timber thirty-six feet long. All 
the upper end of it was round as a mast ; that comes 
up through a hole in the stern, and has the tiller 
attached to it. In large vessels there are ropes made 
fast to the tiller, and then to the wheel, so that the 
man at the wheel steers the ship. The rudder-post 
fits into the groove in the stern-post, upon which it is 
hung by pintles, — bolts making a sort of hinge. 
Only one side of the lower part of the rudder-post 
was rounded ; some men were getting ready a stick 
of timber to be fitted to the other side, the upper end 
of it to come up as high as the top of the water after 
the ship was launched and freighted. Just these two 
timbers make the rudder that guides the ship. One 
would hardly think that turning it a little to the 
right or left would change her course so quickly ! I 
suppose I need n’t tell you that she can’t be steered 
unless she is in motion. Leave the rudder alone, as 
she sails, and it will follow straight after the keel. 
But turn it ever so little, and the force of the water 
striking on one side pushes it off the other way, and 
the stern off with it. Moving her stern a little one 
way causes the bow to swing off in the opposite direc- 
tion, you know ; and this I believe is all the mystery 
there is in steering a ship. 

The skeleton of this vessel was all complete except 


212 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


a few of her bow timbers. Each rib in this part is 
framed and raised separately. It runs up to an 
astonishing height above the keel, — the bow being 
the loftiest part. The stem-post was nearly ready to 
raise. This is to the bow or stem' what the stern-post 
is to the stern. It is an immense timber as large as 
the keel, into which it is framed, — or rather it is 
several timbers pieced together to give length, with 
the curve that shapes the prow. Where it joins the 
keel it makes almost a right-angle. 

This point is called a “ fore-foot.” Behind the 
stem-post, curving with it, and secured to it, is a 
broad timber, or series of timbers, called the “ apron.” 
This is fastened to the keel by a “ knee ” (there are 
lots of knees in a ship). So you see her bow has one 
thing that belongs to a quadruped, another that be- 
longs to a biped, and a third that belongs to both. I 
may add that her prow is her “head.” A curious 
thing a ship, is n’t she, though? 

For some distance back of the lower part of the 
stem-post she is made so sharp, for cutting her way 
through the water, that there is no room for framing ; 
so the thin space between her sides is there tilled in 
with what is called dead wood, — heavy timbers 
nicely fitted and shaped, to bring, as you may say, 
the wedge to an edge. The stern, below the water- 
line, is as sharp as the stem, and I believe a little 
sharper; and the thin part there is filled in with 
dead wood just the same. 


FINISHING. 


213 


III. 

FINISHING. 

In the next yard was a ship nearly finished, and I 
went to take a look at her. There were three stagings 
built all about her, and men on them at work ; and 
they kept up a jolly hammering and clattering, I tell 
you ! A dozen men were carrying a long plank up 
an inclined plane, to the middle staging. It was of 
hard pine, five inches thick, six or seven broad, and 
fifty feet long. Six men at each end, with their 
shoulders under it, had hard work to get it up. 

“ They are putting on her skin” a workman told 
me. The skin I found consisted of such planks as 
these. She was already half covered, from the keel 
upwards. The planks upon her sides are thicker than 
those below, and are called “ wales.” I thought the 
big one the men were carrying up must be the Prince 
of Wales. 

After they got it up on the staging, they placed it 
on the top of the planking already fastened to the 
timbers. As the ship’s side bulged, while the plank 
was nearly straight, it had to be brought to its place 
by means of ring-bolts in the timbers, levers, ropes, 
wedges, and sledge-hammers. For the short curves 
about the bow and stern the planks have to be steamed, 
and put on wet and hot, or they would split all to 
pieces in bending. The wales do not run in straight 
horizontal lines, parallel with the ship’s water-line. 



BUILDING THE SHIP 





FINISHING. 


215 


but they sweep from end to end in sagging lines, 
highest above the water at the bow and lowest 
about midships. The line of a ship’s deck makes 
a similar curve. This is called the “ sheer.” 

As soon as a plank was in place, it was fastened by 
spikes driven at each end. Afterwards auger-holes 
were bored at intervals clear through plank, timber, 
and inside plank, or “ ceiling ” (for this ship was 
already lined); then long wooden oak pins, called 
“ trunnels ” (though you won’t find trunnel in the 
dictionary ; the word is spelled treenail ), were driven 
through, and wedged at both ends without and within. 
Besides these fastenings, iron bolts were let through 
and clinched on the inside. 

The “skin” planks were cut so as to fit closely 
together against the timbers, and yet leave an open 
seam between them, a quarter of an inch wide, at the 
surface. On the lower staging the calkers were at 
work. Two men had eight or ten light iron wedges, 
which they drove into a seam, and opened it a quar- 
ter of an inch further. Other men followed, driving 
oakum in between the planks, with mallets and 
calking-irons. As fast as the head calker came up 
to the wedges they were knocked out, and oakum 
filled their place, while they were carried forward and 
driven into the seam again farther along. The ring 
of so many mallets made merry music, for a person 
who likes a lively noise. The oakum was driven in 
out of sight ; it was afterwards to be covered with 
hot pitch from a syringe-like instrument, run along 


216 


AMONG THE SHIP-BTJJLDERS. 



THE CALKERS AT WORK. 

tlie seam. This had been done in some places ; and 
there carpenters were smoothing the planks all over 
with planes, and making the bottom ready for sheath- 
ing. 

I went up to the top staging and climbed over on 
the upper deck, which men were calking in about the 
same way. Every exposed seam about a ship must 
be calked, you know, or the constant straining she 


FINISHING. 217 

gets in the heavy seas will make her leak like a 
sieve. 

Carpenters were building the deck-houses and dress- 
• ing the stanchion timbers, — the uppermost timbers 
of her frames, that rise above the deck and support 
her rails. The top rail is sometimes called a “ monkey- 
rail/’ The wood-work between that and the water- 
ways is her “ bulwarks.” The “ water-ways ” are deep 
planks that form a way for the water about her deck 
(which is rounded a little, like a duck’s back, so as to 
shed it), and let it out through holes called “ scup- 
pers.” Secured to the stanchions, below the monkey- 
rail, is commonly another rail full of holes for wooden 
pins, to which the sail-ropes are made fast. This is 
the “ pin-rail.” The rail about the stern is the " taff- 
rail.” You see every part of a ship has its peculiar 
name. I am going to get, if I can, some drawings, 
showing the principal parts, and send them to you. 

From the upper deck (sometimes called the “ spar- 
deck ”) I went down a steep ladder, through a “ hatch- 
way ” (sailors usually say simply the “ hatch,” as the 
“ after hatch,” the “ main hatch ”), and landed on the 
lower, or “ main deck.” There I had a good chance to 
see how she w r as finished up inside. Overhead, sup- 
porting the upper deck, and binding the two sides of 
the ship together, were “ beams,” extending across, and 
secured at each end by a naturally crooked piece of 
timber called a “ knee.” One end of this knee was 
fastened to the beam, the other to the side of the 
ship. There was another set of beams supporting 
10 


218 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


Midship Section (one side). 



1, 1, 1. Timbers of the Frame 2. Keel. 

3 Keelson. 4, 4. Sister Keelsons. 

5. Ceiling. 6, 6. Knees. 

7, 7. Hold and Between-Deck Stanchions. 

8. Lower, or Main Deck 12. Water-Way. 

9. Upper, or Spar Deck. 13. Bulwarks. 

10. Hold. 14. Rail. 

11. Plank Sheer. 15. Gunwale. 


tlie deck under my feet. Besides the knees at the 
ends, each beam of the lower deck was supported at 
its centre by a stanchion, or prop, resting on the keel- 
son. The beams of the upper deck had a row of just 
such stanchions, resting on the row below. 



FINISHING. 


219 


Through openings in the lower deck I could look 
down into the immense “hold.” There were holes 
through both decks for the masts, which were to rest 
on the keel, secured to it by blocks called “ steps.” 
The “ ceiling ” — that is to say, the inside planking — 
was quite thin on the bottom of the hold. But it was 
made very heavy — a foot thick, I believe — where 
the sides began to rise, diminishing gradually to some 
seven inches between decks. 

The clatter kept up inside that ship was jolly ! 
The men were pounding down the ends of the bolts 
driven through from the outside ; and then every 
stroke of the hammer or a calker’s mallet on the 
“ skin,” or the deck above, was heard as plainly as if 
all these thirty or forty men were thundering away 
inside of her. 

Some men were polishing down the beams and 
ceiling, and making them as handsome as the wood- 
work of the finest houses. 

As I went out, and down over the side again, I saw 
a fellow bringing up coarse salt in a coal-hod and 
pouring it into the spaces between the timbers, which 
he kept filled as fast as the “ skin ” was put on. 

The more I learned about a ship, and saw how 
skilfully designed and nicely fitted everything had to 
be, to give her symmetry and strength, and make her 
sit well on the water, the more I wondered at it ; and 
it seemed to me one of the greatest mechanical feats 
to make the plan and patterns of a ship. I said as 
much to one of the carpenters, who replied, “You 
ought to visit a moulding-loft.” 


220 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


I asked what that was. 

“ The ship architect’s workshop,” said he, “ where 
his model and the mould-boards are made. It ’s a 
curiosity.” 

I asked, would the architect like to have me look 
in, — for of course I regarded him as a great man. 

“ Certainly,” said he ; “ he ’ll be glad to show you ; 
and you ’ll find him a perfect gentleman.” 

The carpenter gave me his address ; it was only a 
few squares off. But, dear me, Mr. Clarence ! I 
thought I could tell you all I had to tell on one sheet 
of paper, and at one sitting ; now this is the third 
evening I have been writing, and I have n’t begun to 
tell you the most interesting things about ship-build- 
ing. So I ’ll hold up for the present, and give you 
the rest in another letter. 

Yours, out of breath, 

Lawrence. 

P. S. — I collected that bill ! 


IY. 

THE MOULDING-LOFT. 

A FEW evenings later Lawrence wrote : — 

I began to tell you how I went to find the ship- 
wright, or ship architect, as they call him. I soon 
saw his sign on the upper story of a great, long old 
wooden building, near the ferry. At the top of two 
flights of stairs outside I came to a door with his name 
and slate on it ; it was partly open, and I looked in. 


THE MOULDING- LOFT. 


221 


It was a great room in the top of the building, at 
least a hundred and fifty feet long and thirty broad. 
On the sleepers overhead, beneath the roof, were piled 
all sorts of odds and ends of lumber. One side of the 
floor was occupied by piles of boards, carpenters’ 
horses, benches, and tools ; but the larger part was an 
open space, in the middle of which a man was at work 
on his knees, marking out lines by thin strips of 
boards or battens bent into curves, and held in place 
by awls stuck into the floor. He wore, tied on his 
knees, strong caps of leather, to protect them as he 
knelt at his work. I noticed that the toes of his 
shoes were worn through. He looked up pleas- 
antly, under his broad-brimmed straw hat and said, 
“ Come in.” 

I told him frankly what had brought me there. 

“ That ’s right ; glad to see you,” said he. “ I ’ll be 
through here in a few minutes, then 1 11 show you.” 

I watched him at his work ; and, looking around, 
saw that almost the entire floor was covered with 
long, sweeping, curved lines, in different groups, and 
straight lines running across them in places. 

“ Do you see what I am making here ? ” said he. 

I said I supposed it must be the designs of a ship's 
timbers. 

“ You are right,” said he. “ These lines I am draw- 
ing now are for one of the ship’s ribs. That is built 
up of several timbers ; and I mark here a pattern of 
each. I cut out a mould-board after the pattern, and 
send that to the carpenter to cut his timber by.” 


222 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


“ But how do you get your plan in the first place ? 
That is what puzzles me ! ” I said. 

He said he would show me that by and by, and 
kept on marking and talking. It was fun to see him 
bend a batten to just the curve he wanted, stick awls 
to hold it, and then mark his lines by it. He said it 
required five hundred moulds to make the timbers of 
a ship of the size he was designing (about thirteen 
hundred tons’ burden) ; and it would take more than 
twice the number, “ but,” said he, “ I make moulds 
for the timbers of only one side ; and then there are 
several frames near the middle of the ship made just 
alike, from the same set of moulds.” 

I said, " I had no idea till to-day how much timber 
it took to build a ship ! ” 

“ It takes more,” said he, “ than can be got into 
another ship of the same size.” 

“ What is the weight of such a ship as this when 
finished ? ” I asked. 

“ A thirteen-hundred-ton ship will weigh about 
nine hundred tons ; that is, a wooden ship. An iron 
ship of the same capacity — ” 

“Will weigh considerably more, I suppose,” I said, 
as he stopped to make some figures. 

“Considerably less,” said he. “An iron ship of 
thirteen hundred tons will weigh less than seven 
hundred tons.” 

“ Do they build ships all of iron ? ” I asked. 

“ Yes ; and they are the cheapest and best ships 
that can be made. The first cost is a third more than 


THE MOULDING-LOFT. 


223 


that of wooden ships ; but they are more buoyant, 
they carry a larger freight, they are stronger, and 
they last three times as long. The dry-rot don’t 
trouble them, and the water-worms let them alone. 
In place of these large timbers they have slender iron 
ribs ; and in place of the heavy planking without and 
within they have just a thin skin of iron plates riv- 
eted together, less than an inch thick, except in very 
large ships. A great many ships are made of iron 
nowadays, especially in England, where iron is com- 
paratively cheap and timber dear. The largest ship 
ever built is made of iron ; that is the Great Eastern, 
— six hundred and eighty feet long by eighty-two 
and a half broad, and fifty-eight deep ; a magnificent 
structure, though practically she don’t seem to be 
good for much except laying Atlantic cables.” 

“ What keeps an iron ship from sinking ? ” I asked. 
“ The question came up at school the other day, and 
though we all seemed to know, yet not one of us, not 
even the teacher, could give a satisfactory answer. 
Iron will sink ; then why don’t an iron boat sink ? ” 

“It seems to me you ought to answer that ques- 
tion,” said he. “ Why does wood float while iron does 
not ? ” 

“ Because,” I said, “ wood weighs less than the 
same bulk of water, while iron weighs more; and 
the heaviest substance goes to the bottom.” 

“ In other words,” said he, “ wood, in order to sink, 
must displace more than its own weight of water. 
Now a boat is constructed in such a way as to dis- 


224 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


place a great deal more than her own weight of water 
by being made hollow. All the air she contains be- 
low her water-line is in the balance against an equal 
bulk of water outside. An iron ship, in fact, displaces 
just as much water as if she was built of solid metal. 
Let the water into her, and it drives the air out ; then 
she displaces only the actual bulk of the iron, and 
down she goes. 

“This question of displacement,” he went on to 
say, “is a very important one in building a ship. 
We must know just how much water she will dis- 
place, in order to know what weight she will bear up. 
Now, thirty-five cubic feet of salt water weigh a ton. 
Salt water is heavier, you know, than fresh water ; it 
takes thirty-six cubic feet of fresh water to weigh the 
same. A ton in our calculations is twenty-two hun- 
dred and forty pounds. Then for every ton’s weight 
she buoys up she must displace thirty-five cubic feet 
of water. Her solid contents below her water-line 
will of course just equal the amount of water she dis- 
places, — or, as we say in one word, the displacement” 

I asked if it was by such calculations that a ship’s 
tonnage was ascertained. 

“ When we speak of a ship of so many tons’ bur- 
den, we mean the government rate. The government 
measures and rates every American ship. By the 
new rule the interior of a ship is measured, — just 
as you would get the solid contents of an odd-shaped 
box, — and every hundred cubic feet below her up- 
per deck count for a ton. Some vessels will actually 


THE MOULDING-LOFT. 


225 


carry a good deal more than they are rated by this 
rule. Some kinds of freight — such as iron, and 
other solid matters — go by weight. Others — such 
as boxes of shoes — go by measurement, a certain 
bulk being considered equal to a ton.” 

“ Do builders often make two ships from the same 
set of moulds ? ” 

“ Sometimes ; but usually they prefer to have a new 
model for a new ship ; perhaps they want to make 
her a little larger, or a little smaller, or sharper, or 
broader, or think they can improve upon the old 
model some way. Now step here, and I ’ll show 
you what a model is. This is the first stage of it.” 

As I saw nothing but a bundle of plain boards in 
a press, I thought at first that he meant something 
else. There were, perhaps, a dozen boards, two thirds 
of an inch thick and about six feet long. 

“ After these are pressed firmly into shape,” said 
he, “ they are held together by screws, making what 
we call a block. Then we commence working it down 
to something like this shape.” 

He took me into a little workroom at the end of the 
loft, where a perfect little model — or, strictly speak- 
ing, half-model — of a ship lay on a work-bench. 
Imagine a ship sawed in two vertically in the centre 
from stem to stern, and one half of her will give 
you an idea of the form of this model* Only it was 

* Our model, deck plans, half-breadth and body plans, are from pho- 
tographs of a model and drawings kindly furnished by Lawrence’s 
friend, Mr. William H. Varney, Assistant Naval Constructor at tlje 
United States Navy-Yard, Portsmouth, N. H. 

10 * 


o 


226 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


solid. Examining it, I found that 
it was carved out of just such a 
bundle of boards as I had seen ; 
and the seams between them made 
so many parallel stripes, or water- 
lines, along the sides ; only a top 
board had been added, thicker than 
the others, and carved so as to make 
the curved line, or sheer, higher at 
the bow and stem than amidships. 

I asked why he did not carve his 
model from one solid block, instead 
of packing a pile of boards together. 

“ I ’ll show you soon,” said he. 

“ This model is n’t quite finished 
yet. I work it down till I think I 
have got it about right, or till the 
owner of the ship to be built from 
it is satisfied. "When he comes in 
to see it to-morrow, he may say, 

‘ Make her a little sharper,’ — for 
the fancy is for sharp ships just 
now. There is this great advan- 
tage in making a model, — any- 
body can tell, by looking at it, just what the shape of 
the ship is to be. English shipwrights do not make 
models, but draw all their lines on paper first. 

“ The way we get our lines is this : When the 
model is completed I lay it on a smooth surface, flat 
side down, and mark around it, — that is, draw its 


Half-Breadth Plan. — 1 , 2, 3, Water-lines. 


THE MOULDING- LOFT. 


227 



profile. Then the water-lines are marked 
in. This forms what we call the sheer 
plan . 

“ Then I remove the screws, take the 
model to pieces, and lay one hoard after 
another, beginning with the narrowest 
at the bottom, on another plain surface, 
— the straight side of each being ad- 
justed to a common centre-line, repre- 
senting the centre of the ship. A line 
marked about the curved side of each 
board shows her exact proportions 
through that part which it represents. 
In this way we get what is called the 
half-breadth plan. 

“ By a scale of measurements we ob- 
tain from these two plans the exact 
dimensions of every part of the ship, 
and make a third plan, called the body 
plan. This represents her entire breadth 
and height, as viewed from one end, 
with curved lines on one side of a cen- 
tre line showing the frame timbers of 
the forward half of the ship, and on 
the other side showing those of the 
after part. 

“ Now I ’ll explain to you how we 
get out the designs of the frame tim- 
bers. The model is on a scale of one 
inch to three feet ; that is, every inch 





Body Plan. — Left side. Bow Timbers ; right side, Stem Timbers. 1 , 2, 3, W ater-line«. 


THE MOULDING-LOFT. 


22 ( J 


of the model stands for thirty-six inches in the ship 
to he built. Having got our body plan, therefore, we 
have only to draw it on the floor of the loft on a scale 
thirty-six times as large. Then every one of these 
curved lines represents a rib, for which we go to work 
and make as many moulds as are required.” 

“ All that looks very simple now,” I said. “ But 
a man might learn it all by heart; still, it would 
bother him to build a ship ! ” 

“ I guess it would,” said he. “ For instance, a man 
comes to me and says, ‘ I want a steamboat for the 
cotton trade on a Southern river. She must carry 
three thousand bales where the water is only twelve 
feet deep.’ I have to plan accordingly. Then one 
man wants a vessel for speed, while with another a 
heavy freight is the chief consideration. For speed, 
we make the model sharper, — on the principle that 
a knife will cut the water easier than a walking-stick 
will. But the sharper a ship, the less room she has 
for cargo. We make more room by building her 
broader but then she meets with more resistance 
passing through the water. Owners choose certain 
qualities for a ship, according to the trade she is in, 
— whether it is important she should go quickly 
with a light load, or leisurely with a heavy load. But 
it is n’t all in her shape ; she must be rigged right 
and loaded right to sail well.” 

I asked him if great improvements had not been 
made in modelling and rigging ships within a few 
years. 


230 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


“We think so,” he replied, with a smile. “A mod- 
ern-built ship, designed for speed, — what we call a 
clipper ship, — will sail three times as fast as a ship 
built forty years ago ; and it takes fewer men to 
manage her sails.” 

“ What are the best proportions for vessels ? ” I 
asked. 

“ As a general rule the length of a ship is five times 
her breadth ; her depth, one half or two thirds her 
breadth. Steamers are longer ; a length equal to 
eight times the breadth is common. Length adds 
speed, but it weakens a vessel.” 

“ When you get your floor covered with marks 
what do you do, — rub them out ? ” 

“ No ; plane them off with what is called a lazy 
man’s plane.” And he showed me one ; it had a han- 
dle like a mop, so that a man could use it standing. 

y. 

SPARS AND RIGGING. 

In another room was his office ; and there I saw 
several beautifully finished models of ships and steam- 
ers fastened to the wall, the pieces composing each 
having been finally glued together and polished up. 
I noticed that neither of them had the keel attached. 

“ No,” he said ; “ the keel is n’t necessary in a 
model, though it is indispensable in a ship. It not 
only gives strength, but a sailing vessel can’t beat 
without it.” 


SPARS AND RIGGING. 


231 


I told liim I never could understand how a ship 
sailed against the wind. 

“ She can’t sail directly against it,” he said. “ But 
she goes this way,” — he drew a perpendicular arrow. 
“ That represents which way the wind blows. Now 
suppose the ship’s course lies in an opposite direc- 
tion. But the nearest she can come to that is a line 
crossing the course of the wind something like this 
smaller arrow. Her sails are set diagonally, — this 
fashion, — so that the wind fills them, and presses 
them forward in the direction of this dotted line. 



But a ship meets with great resistance going side- 
wise through the water ; the keel is like a blade on 
the .bottom ; it adds greatly to that resistance, and 
serves to keep her in a straight course. So instead 
of sailing in the direction of the dotted line, she sails 
in the direction her keel points. But head her too 
much that way, and she drifts off with the wind. 
Some vessels will sail much closer to the wind than 
others. After she has sailed as long as the master 
thinks best in that direction her head is turned sud- 
denly toward the wind ; her momentum through the 


232 


AMONG THE SHIP -BUILDERS. 


water keeps her in motion till she comes clear around, 
and gets the wind on her other side, and sails off on 
what is called another tack . In this way she describes 
a zigzag course against the course of the wind, sailing 



Y 


several miles for every one she makes in the direction 
she wishes to go. That is what we call beating. Some 
badly built or imperfectly rigged ships won’t stay, — • 
that is, they won T t go around with their heads to the 
wind, but lose their momentum, and blow off ; such 
ships, in tacking, have to wear , — turning the opposite 
way, with their sterns to the wind ; a great disadvan- 
tage, as they necessarily go back a little on their 
course before they can get around on the other 
tack.” 

He took up a piece of wood from his desk, and, 
handing it to me, asked what I thought of it. I 
found it light as cork, and full of holes as a 
piece of honeycomb. It was a bit of ship’s timber 
that had been destroyed by water- worms. The out- 
er surface was smooth, appearing to be perforated 
here and there with pin-points. The worms were no 
larger than that, he said, when they went in; but. 


SPARS AND RIGGING. 


233 


feeding on the wood, they grew rapidly, until they 
made a hole as large as a pipe-stem. They are borers ; 
and, what is curious, the cutting end of a modern 
ship-auger is copied after their boring apparatus, and 
it is found to work better, in making a straight, deep 
hole, than any other. 

“This ship,” he said, “ was loaded so that the water 
came above her sheathing ; and so the worms got at 
her. A ship’s bottom must be sheathed in some sort 
of metallic covering, or she is soon destroyed by in- 
sects, shell-fish, and marine vegetables, adhering to 
her. Copper makes the best sheathing, as it corrodes 
and poisons whatever touches it. But it is expen- 
sive, and it wastes rapidly ; so a composition of cop- 
per and zinc is commonly substituted for it.” 

“ When is the sheathing put on ? ” 

“ Sometimes just before she is launched,” said he ; 
“but it is liable to get injured when she goes off; 
and, besides, any leaks in her can’t be so well detected 
and stopped afterwards. So she is usually launched 
first, and then taken to a dry-dock and sheathed. She 
is shut into the dock, the water is pumped out by 
steam-engines, and let in again after the sheathing is 
put on.” 

He told me ever so much about the spars and rig- 
ging, which I don’t think I could write out if I should 
try. A ship is a vessel with three masts and square 
sails. A brig has two masts and square sails. A 
schooner has two masts with fore-and-aft sails. An 
hermaphrodite brig has the foremast square-rigged 


234 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


and the mainmast fore-and-aft rigged; she is half 
brig and half schooner. A sloop has only one mast. 
Then there is the topsail schooner, with a square top- 
sail ; and the barkantine, with three masts, the fore- 
mast rigged like a ship’s, and the other two schooner- 
rigged. 



The mast of a small vessel is generally a single 
well-rounded, tapering stick of pine. But each of the 
three masts of one of the largest ships consists of a 
number of sticks. The lower part of each has a cen- 
tral stick, and others fitted about it, — all well-round- 
ed and hooped, to give greater size and strength. At 
the head of the lower mast is a platform called the 
“ top.” Standing on this is another mast, called the 
“ topmast,” — : secured by a “ cap.” Atop of the top- 
mast is the “ top-gallant ” mast ; and over that the 
“ royal.” Some ships have besides what is called a 
“ skysail mast,” top of all. Each of these masts has 
a square sail of the same name hung upon it by a 
yard. The masts are held in their places by im- 
mensely large ropes, called “ stays,” and by smaller 


SPARS AND RIGGING. 


235 



a. Foresail. 

b. Fore Topsail. 

c. Fore Top-gallantsail. 

d. Fore Royal. 

e. Fore Skysail. 

f. Fore Studdingsail. 

g. Fore Topmast Studdingsail. 

h. Fore Top-gallant Studdingsail. 

i. Mainsail. 

k. Main Topsail. 

l. Main Top-gallantsail. 

m. Main Royal. 


n. Main Skysail. 
o Main Topmast Studdingsail. 
p. Main Top-gallant Studdingsail. 

r. Mizzen Topsail. 

s. Mizzen Top-gallantsail 

t. Mizzen Royal. 

u. Mizzen Skysail. 

v. Jib. 

w. Fore Topmast Staysail. 

x. Fore Staysail. 

y. Fore and Main Spencers. 

z. Driver or Spanker. 


ropes called “ shrouds,” which also serve as ladders ; 
the rounds, or steps, are cross-ropes, called “ rat- 
lines.” The “ halyards ” are ropes for hoisting the 
yards and sails ; the “braces” are for swinging them 
around ; the “ sheets ” are ropes for hauling and fas- 


236 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


tening the lower corners of the sails. These, and other 
ropes used in managing the sails, are called the “ run- 
ning rigging.” The stays, shrouds, etc., are the 
“standing rigging.” 

So much I remember. He has promised to get 
me a drawing of a full-rigged ship, and to mark in 
the names of the sails for me; if he does, you shall 
see it. 


VI. 

THE LAUNCH. 

All at once, while I was talking with the ship- 
wright, he looked at his watch. 

“ There ’s to be a launch to-day at high tide,” he 
said. “ It *s almost high tide now.” 

You ’d better believe that excited me, for a launch 
was just what I wanted to see. I had passed right 
by the yard where it was to take place without know- 
ing it. As I might have time to see it yet, if I hur- 
ried, I bade him good by, and went plunging clown 
his outside stairs like a mad boy. Eight under his 
loft was a rigging-loft, where men were at work mak- 
ing the stays and shrouds of ships, which I should 
have looked into, if I had had time ; but the launch 
was the thing just then. 

I arrived on the ground just in season. A crowd 
had gathered in the yard since I passed by ; and 
another crowd was standing or sitting on the wharves 
or timbers of a neighboring yard, waiting to see the 


THE LAUNCH. 


237 


show. In ten minutes she would go off ; and in the 
mean while I looked sharply about to see how the 
thing was to be done. 

I told you of the ways laid on blocks, and extending 
down into the water from under the stern of the first 
ship I visited, — a sort of huge wooden railroad; you 
know. Well, a track like this had been built of tim- 
bers running from the water all along under the ship’s 
bottom, on each side of her keel. It had a slope of 
nearly an inch to the foot, just enough to make her 
slide off handsomely. 

She did not rest directly on these ways, under- 
stand. Built up all about her was a curious sort of 
frame, called a cradle , the bottom timbers of which 
are called bilgeways. These were the runners on which 
she was to take a ride down the track. She was 
blocked up by timbers and planks between her bot- 
tom and the bilgeways ; and these rested on the ways, 
which had been well “ greased with taller,” as a work- 
man informed me, and afterwards, when the tallow 
was cold, “ slushed with ile and soft-soap.” The 
under-sides of the bilgeways had also been greased. 
To prevent her from running off the track, strong 
hard-wood “ ribbons ” were fastened to the top of the 
ways on the outer edge, and well supported by slant- 
ing props set in the firm ground. 

Her entire weight did not rest on the cradle as yet ; 
otherwise there would have been nothing to prevent 
her from sliding down the slippery track. The piles 
of blocks on which she had been built were still un- 


238 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


der her keel, and a few shores at her sides. While I 
was looking on, the shores were taken away, and the 
word came to launch, when a number of men on each 
side, who stood ready with axes, commenced splitting 
out the top block of each pile. 

I got a good position at a safe distance on a pile of 
lumber near the saw-mill. The crowd was perfectly 
silent, waiting to see the huge thing start ; and there 
was scarcely any noise but the sound of the axes, and 
the puffing of the steam-tugs lying off the yard wait- 
ing to catch her as soon as she was launched. 

“ I hope the tugs will do better than they did with 
the last ship I saw go off,” said a man who stood on 
the boards beside me. “ She was a very large ship ; 
the cables parted they undertook to hold her with ; 
she got away, and ran clean across the stream, butted 
agin the navy-yard wall, poked her nose into it fif- 
teen feet, and there stuck.” 

As he had broken the silence, I asked, “Do they 
always launch stern-foremost ? ” 

“ Oftener than any other way,” he said. “ Some- 
times they launch bow foremost. Very large vessels 
in narrow streams have to be launched sideways. 
The Great Eastern was launched sideways in the 
Thames.” 

The men had begun splitting out the blocks near- 
est the water. I supposed they would have to split 
out the top block on the last pile under the bow 
before she would start. But half a dozen piles still 
remained untouched, when suddenly the crowds on 


THE LAUNCH. 


239 


each side shouted, “ She is going ! ” The men with 
the axes sprang away, while the last blocks whirled 
over beneath her keel, as her weight came down on 
the bilgeways, and they began to slide. It was a 
grand sight, — that immense structure, a ship of the 
largest size, starting slowly at first, then moving off 
faster and faster, striking the water, and throwing up 
a great wave as she plunged in ! You never heard 
heartier cheers ! I cheered and swung my hat till 
everybody else was done, I was so excited. The tugs 
held her; and then we cheered again. Everybody 
likes to see a great enterprise carried out with such 
perfect success ; and building and launching such a 
vessel is one of the grandest. 

There were a few gentlemen and ladies aboard of 
her, when she went off ; and how I envied them ! 
Yet people said the sight was better from the 
shore. 

Well, it was all over; and what astonished me as 
much as anything was the hole she made in that yard 
after she had gone off. Imagine a meeting-house in 
a village square suddenly disappearing, leaving it 
vacant, and a crowd of people around the spot 
where it stood, and you ’ll have some idea of it. 

This ship had been sheathed before she was 
launched. As the tugs began to move off with 
her down the stream, I asked where she was going. 

“ To the shears,” said some one. 

I asked what the “ shears ” were, and was told 
that they were a couple of spars lashed together, set 


240 


AMONG THE SHIP-BUILDERS. 


upright, and furnished with tackle for lifting the 
masts into and out of vessels. I ought to have told 
you before, that a vessel’s spars (which include masts, 
yards, bowsprit, boom, etc.) are not put in till after 
she is launched. 

It was too late for me to visit the shears ; and I 
guess you are glad of it, — for have n’t I written you 
another stunningly long letter ? The shears, instead 
of cutting it short, would only make it longer. 

Good by. 


Lawrence. 


INDEX 


♦ 


A. 

Accidents, in coal mines, 170, 171. 

Air, necessary to combustion, 39, 40. 
Alkalies, in glass-making, 51. 

Amalgam, for mirrors, 92. 

Anthracite, first used, 145 ; how mined, 
151, 152 ; different kinds of, 163, 134. 
Apron, a ship’s, 202. 

Arsenic, in glass-making, 50. 


B. 

Barometer tube, how made, 67. 

Beams, of a ship, 217 . 

Beating, theory of a ship’s, 231, 232. 
Beds, of coal, versus “veins,” 133, 139: 
of soft coal and anthracite, compared, 
139 

Bevel-board, in ship-building. 202. 
Blast-furnace, 181 - 188, 195, 196. 
Blowing-house, 52, 54. 

Boracic acid, in glass-making, 50. 
Borers, in ships, 232, 233. 

Breast, a miner’s, 146. 

Bulwarks, of a ship, 217- 


C. 

Calking, a ship, 215, 216. 

Cannel coal, why so called, 164. 
Carboniferous period, 114, 115. 

Caster vial, how made, 70. 
Casting-house, iron-works, 188 - 191. 
Cats in coal mines. 157 - 159. 

Cave, of glass-works, 33-38, 95. 

Ceiling, of a ship, 215, 219. 

Chamber, a miner’s, 146. 

Chimney, what makes the draft of, 38 ; 
a modern contrivance. 39 ; of glass- 
works, 34, 39, 54. 

Cinder, in iron-smelting, 194, 197. 
Clarence, Mr. , introduced, 104; his way 
of getting through the world, 108 ; 
Lawrence’s guide, 109 
Clay, for glass-pots, 41 ; how prepared, 


Coal, what becomes of, when burned, 
28; quantity consumed by glass-fur- 
naces, 38 ; power of, 111, 145 ; how 
mined, 151, 152 ; different kinds of, 
163, 164. 

Coal-breaker, 126, 128. 

Coal formation, 114, 115, 120, 138-141. 

Coal mine, 134, 141-173; caving in of, 
111, 112 ; how ventilated, 118, 154, 
156 ; on fire, 189. 

Coal-miners, 125, 142, 149 ; houses of, 
109, 110 ; in the war, 116 ; how paid, 
123, 124 ; in the old country, 143. 

Coal-shaft, 118, 119, 121, 131 - 134. 

Colliery, 117, 122. 

Composition, secret of fluency in, 177- 

Copper, for ship's sheathing, 233. 

Cream-pitcher, glass, how made, 71. 

Crown glass, how made, 88. 

Cullet, 47, 48. 

Culm, 129. 

D. 

Dead wood, in ship-building, 212. 

Dean, Dr , teaches Lawrence to swim, 2 ; 
to rescue a drowning person. 3 ; to re- 
suscitate the drowned, 4-8; takes 
Lawrence to glass-works. 27 ; to coal 
region, 101 ; idea of letter- writing, 199. 

Decks, of ship, 217. 

Diagrams, of coal mine, very original, 
154-157, 162; of the parts of a ship, 
218, and opposite 199. 

Diamonds, for glass-cutting, 91, 97. 

“ Diamond dust,” 71 

Displacement, question of, in ship-build- 
ing, 224. 

Division of labor, in letter-writing, 176. 

Dogs in coal mines, 157, 158. 

Drift, in coal-mining, 121, 141 -146. 

Drowned, how to resuscitate the, 4 -8. 

Drowning person, how to rescue, 3. 

Dry-rot, in ships, 208, 209. 


F. 

Fire-damp, 168 - 170. 

Flint glass, whv so called, 48. 


r 


11 


P 


242 


INDEX. 


Forefoot, a ship’s, 212. 

Fossils, in coal, 115, 163. 

Frame, of a ship, 2U1, 205. 

Furnaces, glass, 35, 54 ; window-glass, 
89 ; blast, 181 - 188, 195, 196. 


G. 

Gaffer, why so called, 30, 31. 

Gangway. See Drift. 

Gases, in mines, 168 - 170. 

Glass, flint and green, 35; what made 
of, 48 - 50 ; how “ decolorized,” 50 ; 
blown, 52 - 69 ; moulded, 70, 71 ; 
pressed, 71, 72 ; plated, 73, 74 ; an- 
nealed, 75, 77 ; cutting, 78-81; en- 
graved, 82 - 84 ; difference between 
blown and pressed, 84 , 85 ; how col- 
ored, 85, 86; how silvered, 86-88; 
curiosities of, 9 1 - 96. 

Glass beads, how made, 69 

Glass-blowers, antics of, 52, 53 ; super- 
stitious, 53. 

Glass bugles, how made, 69. 

Glass-furnaces, 35, 54. 

Glass jar, how made, 61, 62. 

Glass-makers, a class by themselves, 31 ; 
ancient, 93. 

Glass-making, history of, in America, 
93. 

Glass-works, 28 - 96. 

Gold, “ eaten up,” 85, 86, 95. 

Great Eastern steamship, 223, 238. 


H. 

Homoeopathic vials, how made, 68. 
Hot blast, theory of, 186. 


I. 

Ice. forms slowly under snow, and why, 
15 ; how cleared of snow for cutting, 
15-17; catching pickerel through, 
17 ; how cut, 18 -26 ; has a “grain,” 
23. 

Inkstand, glass, how made, 70. 71. 

Iron-furnaces, how charged, 183 

Iron ships, weight of. 222 ; cost of, 223 ; 
compared with wooden, 223 ; how 
made, 223. 

Iron-smelting, theory of, 195-197. 

Iron- works, 181 - 188, 195, 193. 


J. 

Jake Thornes, rescue of, 9 - 13. 


K. 

Keel, a ship’s, 204, 205 ; why necessary, 
230, 231. 

Keelson, a ship’s, 209. 

Knee, a ship’s, 212, 217, 


L. 

Lackawanna, Valley of, 101, 102. 

Lackawanna Iron-Works, 180. 

Lamp, safety, 168, 169. 

Lamp-chimney, how blown, 61 - 60. 

Lamp-globe, how blown, 61. 

Launch, of a ship, 238 - 240. 

Lawrence, at the pond-side, 1 ; learning 
to swim, 2, 3; plays part of drowned 
boy, 5 - 8 ; rescues Jake Thornes, 10, 
11, 13 ; among the ice-cutters, 14 -26 ; 
among the glass-makers, 27 - 90 ; jour- 
ney to the coal regions, 101 ; makes 
the acquaintance of Mr. Clarence, 106 ; 
among the coal -miners, 109 - 173; 
among the iron-men, 181 - 198 ; among 
the ship-builders, 199-240. 

Leers, for annealing glass, 54, 75 - '1. 

Letter-writing under difficulties, 174 — 
177 ; Dr Dean’s idea of, 199. 

Lime, in glass-making, 49. 

Limestone, in iron-smelting, 181, 185, 


M. 

Mast, of ship, how made 234. 
Melting-pots, glass, 35 ; how made, 40, 
43-46. 

Mercury in thermometer tubes, 68, 69. 
Mica, ancient substitute for window- 
glass, 93. 

Miners. See Coal-miners. 

Mining engineer, work of. 119, 120. 
Mirrors, how silvered. 92. 

Model, of ship, 225. 226, 230. 

“ Monkey rail ” of ship, 217. 

Moulding-loft, 221 

Moulds, a ship’s, 201. 202. 221. 

Muff, the dog, introduced. 104. 

Mules, in coal mine, 158, 159, 160. 


N. 

Navy-yard, 204. 

O . 

Oak timber, in ship-building. 203. 
Owen, introduced, 131 ; guide to coal 
mine, 133 ; lost in coal mine, 171,172. 


INDEX. 


243 


Oxide of manganese, 50. 
Oxide of zinc, 50. 


P. 

Pearlash, in glass-making, 51. 

Penn, the “ Pa ” of State, 175. 

Pig iron, 189, 192, 193. 

Pin-rail, a ship’s, 217. 

Pittsburg, glass-factories in, 89. 
Plate-glass, how made, 92. 

Preserve plate, glass, how made, 72. 


R. 

Rag-pickers, at work, 47. 

Rats, in coal mines, 158, 159. 171, 172. 
Red-lead, in glass-making, 49. 

Rigging of vessels, 233 - 236. 

Roaring Brook at night, 184. 

Ruby cup, glass, how made, 73, 74. 
Rudder, 211. ’ 

Rudder-post, 207, 211. 


S. 

Safety-lamp. 168. 169. 

Fails, of vessels, 234. 235. 

Salamander . story of, 53 
Fait, in ship-building. 208, 219. 
Faltpetre, in glass, 51. 

Sand, m glass-making, 48, 49. 

Sandiver. 55. 

Fcranton, Pa., 99, 101, 109, 110, 124. 
Fhaft. See Coal-shaft. 

Fheathing, of vessels, 233. 

Fheer, of a ship. 215. 

Ship how built 204 - 213: how steered, 
211; how modelled. 221, 225 - 229; 
proportions of, 229, 230, how sheathed, 
233 : full-rigged, drawing of, 235 ; how 
launched, 237 - 239. 


Ship-auger, modelled from a water- 
worm, 233. 

Shipwright, 221. 

Ship-yard, 200. 

Shoe, of a ship, 209, 210. 

Silica, in glass, 49. 

Skin, a ship’s, 213. 

Slag, 194, 197. 

Slate, imprinted with leaves and bark, 
113 - 116. ’ 

Slope, in coal mine, 121, 170. 

Slurry 51. 

Soda, in glass. 51. 

Spars, of vessels, 233, 234, 240. 

Steam, power of, 143, 144. 

Stem -post. 212 
Stern-post 207. 

T. 

Taffrail, 217. 

Thermometers, how made, 65 - 69. 

Tiller, 211. 

Timbers, in a ship, 201, 202, 206 207, 

222 . 

Tonnage, of vessels, 224, 225. 

Tunnel, in coal mine, 162. 


U. 

Uncle, Lawrence’s. See Dean. 


V. 

Vials, how made, 68. 


W. 

Water, in coal mines, 160, 161, 164-166; 

weight of, 224. 

Water-ways, a ship’s, 217. 
Water-worms, in ships, 232. 233. 
Window-glass, how made, 58. 89, 91. 
Wineglass, how made, 62 - 64. 


THE END 


'APR 25 1903 







































1 COPY DEL. TO CAT. OW. 
\PR. 25 1903 










APR 30 1903 

































